No matter how much the commentators shrieked for three hours straight about what Hollywood Hogan and the nWo were up to on any given Monday Nitro, WCW’s Cruiserweight Division was the crown jewel of that company. WCW had three hours to kill every Monday, so they showcased loads of high-flying luchadores and other light-weight talent, introducing fans to future stars like Chris Jericho, Rey Mysterio Jr., and Eddie Guerrero.
But WCW had dozens of Cruiserweights, many of which you saw every single week but never held gold. Let’s take a look at some of WCW’s best talent to never win the Cruiserweight Title. Honorable mention to El Dandy, obviously.
10 Super Calo
Look, Super Calo wasn’t great, but he ruled. He was a goofy hip-hop luchador whose mask had a hat and sunglasses permanently attached to it, and he regularly messed up moves so that he fell directly on his head at least once a week. Yet he managed to unsuccessfully challenge for the Cruiserweight title six times, including a 1996 Fall Brawl match against Rey Mysterio, Jr. And if you don’t know Spanish, you’d think his name was a reference to Mary Poppins.
9 Mr. JL
We’re endlessly tickled by the fact that WCW hired future ECW and ROH World Champion Jerry Lynn, put him in a really great mask, and had him wrestle under the extremely lucha moniker of Mr. JL. We thought every cruiserweight got to challenge for the title at least five times, but poor Mr. JL only got one chance on a 1996 Nitro against Mysterio. Just to remind you, Super Calo got six title shots.
8 AJ Styles
“Air Styles” showed up in late period WCW in a Top Gun themed tag team called Air Raid, where they competed in the newly created Cruiserweight Tag Team division. By the way, how many high flyers actually have a jet fighter gimmick? We’ve got these guys, Hyperstreak, and Airwolf? Seems like fertile ground.
Anyway, it’s a shame AJ Styles got hired by WCW like a month before the company folded, because he surely would have won the Cruiserweight title at some point. Wonder if they would have hired Samoa Joe and Christopher Daniels, too.
7 Kaz Hayashi
AJPW and Wrestle-1’s Kaz Hayashi was a staple of the late ‘90s Cruiserweight division, challenging for the title like six times while mostly being relegated to comedy jobber status by inheriting Glacier’s ring gear and having the same racist “bad voiceover” gimmick as Kaientai in WWE, but alongside La Parka instead of another Japanese wrestler. That all sucked, but at least he had some show-stealing multi-man matches in late WCW in the Jung Dragons stable.
6 La Parka
We legitimately cannot believe the original Chairman of pro wrestling never had a WCW Cruiserweight title run. La Parka (now known as LA Park) is iconic -- he’s a fat skeleton luchador that would just randomly flip out and brain everyone in sight with a steel chair and then dance about it. Alas, the king’s only attempt to capture the Cruiserweight title was a less-than-90-second bout with The Artist Formerly Known as Prince Iaukea. A shameful stain on professional wrestling history, and the real reason WCW went under.
5 Brian Pillman
From 1991 to 1992, before the Cruiserweight Division was born, WCW had a Light Heavyweight Title that Brian Pillman -- as “Flyin’ Bryan” -- held a couple of times and regularly challenged for, but the belt lasted 11 months because head booker Bill Watts decided to make exciting matches illegal in WCW by banning top rope moves. By the time Eric Bischoff established the Cruiserweight Division, Pillman was busy with his Four Horsemen duties and respecting booker men.
4 Blitzkrieg
The greatest “what could have been” in the history of our sport has to be Blitzkrieg, a masked Cruiserweight from California who looked like The Flash and Jushin Liger at the same time, had an amazing name, and had some really impressive performances in the nine months he spent in WCW. Think of him as a precursor to guys like Ricochet and Will Ospreay.
Blitzkrieg would challenge for the Cruiserweight title a handful of times, but a concussion would make him reconsider his choice in career and he’d quietly retire. His biggest legacy is inspiring Jack Evans -- he even bequeathed the Blitzkrieg gimmick to Evans at one point -- but if he stuck around, we’d be talking about him in the same breath as Rey Mysterio Jr.
3 Yuji Nagata
Yuji Nagata was never a Junior Heavyweight in his home promotion of New Japan Pro Wrestling -- he won the IWGP Heavyweight Title twice -- but as a Japanese wrestler in WCW, he was probably close enough to the 225 weight limit to let it slide. That said, he only challenged for the title once, in a losing effort to Chris Jericho on a random Nitro. Again, Super Calo had six.
2 Chris Benoit
While better known for competing in the heavier divisions -- he actually won WCW’s US, Tag Team, and Word Heavyweight titles -- Chris Benoit was originally regarded as a lighter competitor. In NJPW, “Wild Pegasus” was a Junior Heavyweight and even took part in the match to decide the first WCW Cruiserweight Champion, which he lost to Shinjiro Otani. Surprisingly, he only challenged for the title in one televised instance -- in a losing effort against Chris Jericho.
1 Jushin Thunder Liger
Arguably the most influential high-flyer of all time -- it’s either him or the original Tiger Mask -- Jushin Thunder Liger, like Brian Pillman, was a regular challenger in WCW’s abortive Light Heavyweight division. But during the Cruiserweight Division era, Liger appeared frequently but only ever had one match for the title, when he took on Ultimo Dragon. Dragon’s J-Crown was also on the line in the match so Liger was essentially competing for nine championships at the same time.