11 Best WCW Matches Of All Time, According To Dave Meltzer
With talents like Ric Flair, Sting, Vader, Ricky Steamboat and the Light Heavyweight and Cruiserweight Divisions, WCW provided fans with some spectacular in-ring action throughout its 12-year existence. Especially through the early 1990s, while plodding giants like Hulk Hogan and the Ultimate Warrior dominated WWE's main event, the company was seen as a more wrestling-focused organization.
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Back when the Wrestling Observer's publisher and longtime critic Dave Meltzer's famous match rating scale never surpassed five stars, the journalist was relatively stingy with his top classification. Despite not earning a perfect score after 1992, WCW earned a total of six five-star scores (with five more tied at 4.75) from Meltzer, and it's probably not a coincidence that five of them heavily featured Flair.
11 Midnight Express vs. Southern Boys - Great American Bash 1990: 4.75 stars
We begin with the matches rated as slightly less than perfect, with the first in chronological order being a somewhat overlooked mid-card bout for the NWA United States Tag Team Championships between two teams on opposite trajectories.
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Stan Lane and Bobby Eaton, led by Jim Cornette, were highly successful years prior with Jim Crockett Promotions but were nearing the end of their run together. Meanwhile, youngsters Tracy Smothers and Steve Armstrong were in their first real feud for the company. However, the four managed to have the July evening's best match - on the night of Sting's first World Title win, no less!
10 Brian Pillman vs. Jushin Liger - SuperBrawl 2 (1992): 4.75 stars
In the second annual SuperBrawl's opening match, Flyin' Brian met "Thunder" as the Light Heavyweight Championship changed hands in a thrilling 17-minute encounter.
After winning the title on a Christmas '91 house show from Pillman, the Japanese legend lost it back in a career-defining match for the young ex-NFL player. For WCW fans watching either live in Milwaukee or on PPV, the fast-paced action was much different from 99 percent (or greater) of wrestling they'd seen, and many today cite it as a landmark foreshadowing the eventual development of the company's Cruiserweight Division.
9 Big Van Vader vs. Cactus Jack - Halloween Havoc 1993 - 4.75 stars
Whenever Vader and Mick Foley were in the ring together (whether as partners or opponents), stiff blows, chair shots and other general mayhem were sure to follow. Their April matches on Saturday Night were legendary for their brutality, but perhaps the most thrilling example between the two maniacs occurred in October '93.
Their Texas Death Match - a much-improved result of the second annual "Spin the Wheel, Make the Deal" gimmick - wasn't for the Mastodon's WCW World Title, but it didn't matter to Jack. Despite the utter carnage of this particular encounter, their on-and-off feud continued through the infamous German March '94 house show where Foley lost part of his ear.
8 Rey Mysterio, Jr. vs. Psicosis - Bash at the Beach 1996: 4.75 stars
Although its main event is immensely historic for another reason, one could argue that in comparison, the opening match on this show is not only significantly better (which it is), but its importance in the broader wrestling landscape isn't far off, either.
Mysterio's first exposure to American fans in his WCW debut at the prior month's Great American Bash was a hit. At the Bash, he and his AAA and ECW rival Psicois displayed their chemistry at what would be (until then) the company's most important PPV, and they not only didn't disappoint: they dazzled.
7 Rey Mysterio, Jr. vs. Eddie Guerrero - Halloween Havoc 1997: 4.75 stars
Over a year after his debut, Mysterio was now one of WCW's brightest young stars whose exploits helped popularize its innovative Cruiserweight Division. Despite Guerrero's success in the company since his debut in late 1995 - winning the United States Title in late '96 and holding it for several months - the two future rivals hadn't crossed paths, however.
At Havoc, they finally clashed for Eddie's Cruiserweight Title - which he'd only won the previous month at Fall Brawl - and Rey's mask. It was an instant classic (won by Mysterio) that made Hollywood Hogan and Roddy Piper's "Age in the Cage" main event look even worse than it was in comparison.
6 Ric Flair vs. Ricky Steamboat - Chi-Town Rumble 1989: 5 stars
It's appropriate that WCW's first five-star bout since its 1988 purchase by Ted Turner and re-branding featured Crockett's longtime top star (Flair) taking on a classic NWA rival.
Steamboat returned to the organization the prior December and immediately set his sights on the Nature Boy, and fans who remembered their clashes a decade prior surely had high expectations. However, beginning with the first of their three epic 1989 encounters that February - where Steamboat defeated Flair to become NWA World Champion for the first and only time - the two raised the bar in their rivalry to a previously unrivaled level.
5 Ric Flair vs. Ricky Steamboat - Clash of the Champions 6 (1989): 5 stars
A month and a half later (and on the same day as WWE's WrestleMania 5 PPV) at the sixth Clash of the Champions TBS special, match number two was the only leg of the Flair-Steamboat trilogy broadcast on cable television.
The card drew strong ratings in multiple regards: its 4.3 on the Neilsen Scale was a success considering its competition, and the main event - a nearly hour-long, Best of Three Falls title defense won 2-1 by the Dragon - was every bit as good as its predecessor.
4 Ric Flair vs. Ricky Steamboat - WrestleWar 1989: 5 stars
Since it was determined - on the subsequent edition of WCW Main Event, of course - that Flair had his foot under the rope during the Clash bout's third and deciding fall, the Nature Boy was granted another rematch at the following month's WrestleWar PPV.
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In hindsight, there were probably some clues that a title change was coming: the previous bout's controversy supposedly necessitated the appearance of three ringside judges (more on that later), and the match wasn't scheduled as the main event. Then, after a half hour of thrilling action, Flair scored the clean win, shaking hands with the Dragon after the fall in a rare show of respect.
3 Ric Flair vs. Terry Funk - Clash of the Champions 9 (1989) - 5 stars
Immediately following Flair's aforementioned WrestleWar title victory, one of the judges (Funk; not Lou Thesz or Pat O'Connor, although that would've been something) brutally attacked the new Champion, leading to his next big feud against the Texan former titleholder.
Their first encounter at July's Great American Bash PPV, which saw Flair retain, predictably was quite good. However, it was September's "I Quit" rematch - with Ric turning babyface and featuring Sting, Gary Hart, the Great Muta and Dick Slater - which earned the Nature Boy his fourth "perfect" score of the year from Meltzer.
2 WarGames - WrestleWar 1991: 5 stars
Flair's fifth five-star rating during his original WCW run (not including those he earned before the re-branding) at WrestleWar '91's edition of WarGames was different from the others, in that he wasn't necessarily primarily responsible for the match's greatness.
In fairness, we'd argue that Meltzer has a predisposition for rating WarGames matches particularly highly, as he's bestowed multiple iterations of the Dusty Rhodes creation between the NWA, WCW, Smoky Mountain and NXT with scores of 4.75 stars or better. This particular match - the Horsemen (Flair, Barry Windham and Sid Vicious - with Larry Zbyszko replacing an injured Arn Anderson) vs. Sting, Pillman and the Steiner Brothers - was no different. In fact, Meltzer loved the entire card, calling it one of the best he'd attended live until that point.
1 WarGames - WrestleWar 1992: 5 stars
Despite erstwhile WarGames MVP Flair's departure from WCW in 1991, the company kept running the popular gimmick match through the Summer in house show bouts anchored by Sting.
By WrestleWar '92, the Stinger was a grizzled veteran of the double cage with an opportunity to be the hero of a five-star encounter of his own. His "Squadron" - with Windham, Steamboat, Dustin Rhodes and Nikita Koloff - engaged in a wild affair with Paul (Heyman) E. Dangerously's Dangerous Alliance of Anderson, Eaton, Zbyszko, Rick Rude and Steve Austin. With that much talent in the ring (ten bona fide legends), Sting's submission of "Beautiful" Bobby was a satisfying conclusion to a spectacular match that instead could've easily been an overbooked mess.
