10 who deserve to be in the WWE Hall of Fame Class of 2019
By Luke Norris
Dean Malenko
This is a bit of a wild card entry, but I strongly believe that Dean Malenko deserves a spot in the WWE Hall of Fame. He first made a name for himself in ECW and really wowed audiences with his series of matches with Eddie Guerrero, who joined him in WCW when Paul Heyman could essentially no longer afford either.
Chris Benoit, who will never get an induction no matter how many people call for it, also joined Malenko in WCW, and both made an immediate impact, even if they’d get buried after a while due to all of the attention received by the nWo. Nevertheless, Malenko continued to be one of the best pure wrestlers in the world and “The Man of 1,000 Holds” won the WCW Cruiserweight Championship, a title he would hold four times, less than a year after arriving to the company. He engaged in great feuds with Rey Mysterio and once again crossed paths with Eddie Guerrero, and the two now had a bigger stage on which to perform — and they made the most of it.
Malenko went to win the United States Championship and also held the tag titles with Benoit. After a while, bigger stories came calling, and Malenko became a part of the last rendition of The Four Horsemen, which led to him getting bigger matches on bigger stages and again, he continued to impress.
He and some of the others impressed so much that WWE came calling once contracts had expired, and Malenko, Guerrero, Benoit and Perry Saturn all jumped ship and showed up on an episode of Monday Night RAW in early 2000. His in-ring tenure in WWE didn’t last long, but he was able to secure the Light Heavyweight Championship on two separate occasions before quietly going away just before the Invasion storyline got going in 2001.
He still works for WWE in a backstage role and can still be seen occasionally on WWE programming, but one more night in the spotlight, namely the Hall of Fame stage, is something Dean Malenko richly deserves.