Click here to see the Top 100 Tag Teams of All Time list so far.
This is part two of the two teams in a row in which one of the participants is disgraced and this time around the disgraced individual is a real nightmare. Chris Benoit & Deal Malenko were ranked number 86 on Cagematch’s top 100 list in April of 2022, and they dropped out of the top 100 in April of 2023, though they’ve since rebounded to number 98 (not that it matters). My funny ranking system puts them at number 79 on my list, because if you remember, a lot of the teams on the Cagematch list above them wind up getting disqualified for not having enough match ratings logged.
Benoit & Malenko started teaming up during a 1992 tour of New Japan. As a team, they were generally booked against Jushin Liger and a revolving cast of partners. I was able to track down one of those matches and it was about on par with stateside matches people are familiar with. The team got back together in ECW as part of the Triple Threat stable with Shane Douglas. That partnership was ported over to WCW, where Benoit and Malenko teamed for a brief time before going their separate ways for a few years. When Malenko joined the Four Horsemen in 1998, the team was back on, and the two remained aligned through their 2000 jump to WWF until Malenko’s career slowed down the following year.
February 25, 1995 – Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Chris Benoit & Dean Malenko def. Sabu & Taz {ECW World Tag Team Championship Match}
From ECW Return of the Funker. I can’t imagine what watching this show on Peacock would be like for someone who became a wrestling fan long after the VHS media era ended. There are so many tracking issues that weren’t fixed during the transfer to digital; what do younger viewers think is happening when they pop up? Benoit & Malenko brawl with Public Enemy before the match, but thankfully no matches between those teams show up on this list. A few months earlier, Benoit broke Sabu’s neck in the opening moments of a singles match and earned the moniker the Crippler. Sabu only took two weeks off due to the injury, which makes me wonder if anyone ever corroborated that his neck was broken. The Triple Threat focus on Sabu’s neck with brainbusters, making me think even more that the injury was kayfabe, but not mad about it because it gave the match a center of gravity. Taz makes the save with a bunch of suplexes, making the fans happy. Malenko goes to work on Taz’s leg, so Paul E. Dangerously tells 911 to drag Taz to the back for his own good. What? Taz said he was fine. Sabu does his best on his own, though his best is basically doing a lot of dives and just barely not injuring himself, until Benoit trips him up and then powerbombs him off of a table on the top rope to win the titles at 10:28. The tornado style of this match made for a couple of exciting comebacks from Sabu, but mostly made the match harder to follow. **½
May 9, 1999 – St. Louis, Missouri
Perry Saturn & Raven def. Chris Benoit & Dean Malenko and Kidman & Rey Mysterio Jr. {WCW World Tag Team Championship Triple Threat Match}
From WCW Slamboree. Kidman and an unmasked Mysterio were the champs coming into this match. Unlike the ECW match, this was not a tornado style match, but the tag rules got thrown out after the first couple of minutes. Things turned chaotic and messy in a hurry. There’s some good action in this, but it drags on way too long and completely loses the crowd. And then the finish has nothing to do with all the action we spent over 15 minutes watching, which is frustrating. Arn Anderson sneaks in to hit Saturn with a spinebuster, allowing his fellow Horseman Malenko to put on a Texas Cloverleaf. But at the same time, someone in a Sting mask trips Kidman on the top rope and Raven hits the Evenflow DDT. The referee counts the pin for Raven instead of Malenko and gives the not-Flock the tag titles at 17:28. Of course there’s a mathematical problem with that finish too, as four guys can’t possibly legal at the same time, so it shouldn’t have been difficult for the referee to choose which pair to pay attention to. People liked this a lot at the time, but that was due in large part to the guys in this match being the only watchable part of WCW at the time. Chris Kanyon was in the mask, btw. ***
January 29, 1998 – Memphis, Tennessee
Chris Benoit & Dean Malenko def. Chris Jericho & Eddie Guerrero
From WCW Thunder 4. Watching this on Peacock, I was made very confused for a few seconds when Jericho came out to his WWE entrance music. Then I realized why that was happening. And it worked a lot better than the awful generic music that the not-yet-the-Horsemen got. This was about as good as you’re going to get from a tag team match in under seven minutes. I thought it might wind up being low effort because it was on Thunder, but it turned out to be a gnarly beating from Benoit & Malenko. That was a strange choice as Jericho was the Cruiserweight Champion, but no one ever said that WCW treated their title holders well towards the end. Guerrero and Jericho just barely hung on throughout, and in the end Benoit locked the Crippler Crossface on Jericho for the win at 6:38, while Malenko blocked Guerrero’s Frog Splash with a boot to the face. If you have ten minutes to kill, fire up this episode of Thunder. Benoit’s awful post-match promo should be avoided at all costs, though. ***¼
April 11, 1999 – Tacoma, Washington
Chris Benoit & Dean Malenko def. Perry Saturn & Raven
From WCW Spring Stampede. Raven & Saturn cost the Horsemen the tag titles to Kidman & Mysterio in the lead up to this match. That was dumb, because that meant that this match became non-title and the new tag champs were already fighting each other for the Cruiserweight Championship on this show. Tony Schiavone becomes a hero of wrestling commentary by pointing out how great it is that all four guys are constantly trying to win the match. He’s right, of course. Poor guy was underrated even back then, making good points even when he was completely unmotivated. This was a solid brawl with a clever finish that I thought was going to annoy me but wound up making sense. Raven brought a chair into the ring but Malenko shoved it back into his face. Raven recovered and hit the Evenflow DDT, but Anderson distracted the referee while putting the chair on Raven’s back during the cover. Benoit flew in with a diving headbutt to the chair, and Malenko rolled over Raven for the win at 14:11. Did it contribute to Benoit’s brain disease? Almost certainly. But as a moment frozen in time, I like it. Had Benoit gone for the pin I would have been pissed, but he sold the move like he would any other chair shot to the head with blood and needing to be helped to the back by his buddies. ***½
October 29, 1995 – Detroit, Michigan
Chris Benoit & Dean Malenko def. Robert Eaton & Steven Regal
From WCW Main Event. This was taped during the pre-show for Halloween Havoc. I was 11 when this event happened in my home arena, but I could not have cared less about WCW at the time so I was definitely not there. Let’s see if missing the highest rated Benoit & Malenko tag team match live experience is one of my great regrets. Given the main event of this show, I never even considered there was something I’d have wanted to be there live for. Eric Bischoff on commentary says, almost a year after Benoit earned the nickname, that he’s, “starting to be called the Canadian Crippler.” This was hard hitting and fast moving. Malenko and Regal had a great exchange on the mat early on. That’s what I’ll remember most. The finish was a little odd, as Eaton accidentally distracts the referee, allowing Malenko to run in and dropkick Regal into Benoit’s dragon suplex, giving the not-yet-Horsemen the win at 8:41. Good fun, and a great showcase for the winners, but hardly a classic. ***½
Benoit & Malenko probably don’t deserve a spot in this list, especially given some of the teams that didn’t make the cut and the fact that one of these guys was a child murderer. But also because while the Revolution/Radicals captured the imagination of the wrestling world for a brief time at the turn of the millennium, they didn’t actually accomplish that much as a team in the ring. Benoit & Malenko didn’t do a ton as a two-man team in WWF, so that and NJPW are missing from Cagematch’s rating system. But if you’re curious, here’s a taste of the more famous stuff from their runs in those companies.
From Diamond Ring Kensuke Office Changes. They emphasize that Nakajima beat Dragon Gate wrestler Kenichiro Arai 
From Dynamite 131. This is a qualifying match for the Owen Hart Foundation tournament. Joe debuted at ROH Supercard of Honor, saving Jonathan Gresham from Jay Lethal (whose soul searching apparently led him to turn heel) & Sonjay Dutt after the main event. And now that ROH and AEW are the same thing, that seems worth mentioning. Caster’s pre-match rap was cute. This was real squashy, with Joe needing only two minutes to put Caster down with the Muscle Buster at 2:52. Lethal & Dutt pop up on the big screens and Lethal says he’d been trying to get a hold of Joe during his difficult soul searching time, and Joe never picked up. They have a present for Joe next week. N/A
From Dynamite 132. Jay Lethal & Sonjay Dutt were in the front row cheering on Joe. Sarcastically, probably, as they brawled with Joe at ROH Supercard of Honor XV. 
From Rampage 39. 
From Dynamite 137. 
From Dynamite 138. This is a 
From Double or Nothing. 
From PWF York Cougar Football Fundraiser. I didn't know that this match happened until over a month after the fact. This started out as a non-title match, but we'll get to why I've listed it as a title match in a moment. FTR have Mick Foley in their corner while their opponents have Bill Behrens. I’ve never actually seen Behrens do an on-camera gig before. He's holding a tennis racket, presumably as an Umaga to Jim Cornette. But it's confusing because there was actually a tennis player named Bill Behrens. They announce this match as having a 20-minute time limit. Only 11 minutes in, they say there are three minutes remaining. Until then, this was as run-of-the-mill as a modern FTR match gets. But the announcement snapped everyone out of their heat-on-Wheeler funk and forced them to go for desperate pins. They announce ten seconds remaining a couple of times, but no one can get the roll up pin they're looking for. The 20-minute time limit expires at 1
From NXT UK 183. McGuinness started by essentially saying that Fraser is going to pee or poo himself during the match. Unnecessary. Had Shawn Michaels been game to have a good match against Vader, this is what it would have looked like. Actually, a more appropriate and modern analogue is Brock Lesnar vs. Seth Rollins from SummerSlam. Much like that match, Frazer used quick strikes and avoided his larger opponent’s signature big move to stay alive. Here it was the powerbomb whereas there it was suplexes. Here, Frazer also successfully damaged WALTER’s knee, which slowed the big man down and made it hard for WALTER to hit the powerbomb. Unfortunately for Frazer, WALTER was able to bide his time and clothesline Frazer’s legs out from under him. An inevitable powerbomb followed and won the match for WALTER at 14:02. I hate to say this because I’m happy that he’s healthier, but the way WALTER has slimmed down has taken some of the magic away from his aura. At least for me it has. That said, dude can clearly still go as well as ever in the ring. ****
From NXT 659. Strong was feeling it here, which is thanks in large part to the crowd being maniacally loud from the get go I’m sure. His whole game was fast and devastating stick and move attacks. That worked pretty well, as WALTER was dazed from time to time. But as with all good WALTER matches (which is pretty much all WALTER matches), everything WALTER does is devastating here so it takes very little for him to take back control. And eventually he did just that and hit the powerbomb for the win at 9:46 (shown of 12:18). After the match, WALTER gets on the microphone and says that his name is Gunther now. I did not think WALTER would be a victim of the renaming curse this far into his run. What will they rename Strong?! ***¾
From NXT UK 185. Andy Shepherd helpfully announces from inside the ring that the reason for the stipulation is that the feud has gotten so violent that it wouldn’t be safe to have fans around. Devlin says during the match that it’s because he thinks Dragunov could only muster the energy to win if he had the crowd behind him. I like that explanation a lot more. The only real reason I could think of to do this without fans is that there was a scheduling conflict with one of the wrestlers for the regular TV taping date and they needed to get this thing filmed. We just had such a long stretch of empty arena NXT UK episodes that I can’t imagine anyone was dying to get another taste of it. This aired the day after Adam Cole vs. Orange Cassidy in a match that was also no disqualification and falls count anywhere, and this served up everything I felt was missing from that match. Now you might say, “Brad, Cassidy is not the same kind of character as Devlin or Dragunov, how could you expect the same level of violence or intensity?” To that I say, when Cassidy started his match by breaking his own sunglasses and rapidly punching Cole, he was indicating that level of violence and/or intensity. And instead the match was mostly wacky. Anyway, this was not wacky. It was stiff and intense and featured weapons that made sense and spots the didn’t take forever to set up. Dragunov got in trouble when his eye injury acted up. Devlin took control and beat the crap out of him. I wasn’t wild about how meek Dragunov was when Devlin was zip tying his hands, but I did like that in the end it turned out to be an error on Devlin’s part anyway because Dragunov’s finisher requires no hands. And indeed, a bound Dragunov jumped off the steel steps (which had been brought into the ring) and hit the Torpedo Moskau on Devlin for the win at 21:43. NXT UK is still sneaking in these dope matches that no one is watching. Y’all should watch them. ****¼ 
From AAA Triplemania Regia. FTR come out with Vickie Guerrero. This was supposed to be explained at an earlier AAA taping but FTR and Guerrero all missed them. AAA is notorious for having this kind of luck/being incompetent lately. FTR is also wearing Eddie Guerrero tribute tights, with American flags on one side and flames on the other, I suppose to pay homage to his Gringos Locos and Latino Heat gimmicks. This match mostly sucked, but one cool spot saw FTR tie Pentagon’s mask to the ropes and force him to unmask with his hands over his face to stop them from climbing the ladder. That would have been a very meaningful moment to lead up to the Lucha Brothers winning the titles back, but unfortunately instead it led into nothing. He just got his mask back and the match continued on in its lame, derivative way. At one point, Pentagon was the only man standing, but instead of climbing the ladder he grabbed a table from the floor. So the titles mean enough to him that he’d unmask to stop his opponents from winning, but not enough for him to get the titles when he had a clear path to do it? Vickie powered Pentagon, causing him to voluntarily jump through the table and Harwood grabbed the belts at 12:12. This was abysmal. *
From AEW Full Gear. Silver was hamming it up a lot more here than he was the year before in New York. That said, this had stronger just-a-match vibes than the aforementioned match. After Silver ripped out Cassidy’s pockets, Cassidy turned up the heat and these guys put on a middle of the row undercard match. Not bad by any means, but nothing memorable either. Cassidy hit the Beach Break rather out of nowhere for the win at 9:42. **¾ 
From the second Honor Reigns Supreme. The commentators sold this as Gresham getting a big shot against a top ROH guy after being an also-ran in the Television Championship division for a while. This was terrific. Both guys did a fantastic job selling their respective targeted limbs, and Gresham in particular played the role of the tenacious underdog perfectly. He didn’t just watch to see where Lethal would have trouble executing his finisher because of the damage he’d done to the former ROH Champion’s arm, he pressed the assault whenever he could, taking out the arm to make sure the Lethal Injection would never come. But what he couldn’t do was stop Lethal from battering his knee and ultimately winning with a Figure 4 Leglock at 17:54. ****¼ 
From the second Masters of the Craft. Columbus has way more Gresham fans than Concord did. That’s a neat little advancement to the plot, innit? They both went after the same limbs that earned them dividends in their previous match. And then they went ahead and built an incredible match out of that story. At first it seemed as though Lethal wasn’t going to be able to get Gresham’s leg to give out. But about halfway through the match, Gresham’s knee was in trouble. Gresham was able to escape the leglock this time by using the momentum of Lethal pulling him away from the ropes to shift to an armbar. But Gresham’s focus on the arm bit him in the ass. Lethal went for the Lethal Injection and collapsed again, but when Gresham went for a roll up after that Lethal cut back on it for the win at 18:27. This is one of the best American examples that I've seen of a match building on the match that came before. Rather than try to outdo the maneuvers from their first meeting for the sake of a big crowd reaction, they adjust their game plans in logical ways that, to me, were just as exciting. I think this match is slept on, by virtue of the fact that I’ve never heard anything about it before watching it. ****½ 
From ROH Wrestling 364. In real life, 
From Death Before Dishonor XVII. Gresham and Lethal had been teaming, but Gresham grew frustrated and started heeling. Ultimately, he turned on Lethal. It took them a little while to get there, but once they got into a groove this was exactly what I wanted from this match. It was back to their old tricks, with Lethal targeting the leg to set up for the Figure 4 Leglock and Gresham targeting the arm to block the Lethal Injection and set up for his Octopus. In the end, Lethal tried the cutback trick that worked for him in Columbus, but Gresham countered to a pin and then put on the gnarliest Octopus for his first win over Lethal at 17:20. This is the best kind of wrestling series. And none of it felt stale because it was a year after they’d wrestled last and because they found ways to energize the old tropes. And that’s not to mention Gresham busting out what I can only describe as a sumo-style assault. Gresham and Lethal make up after the match. ****
From ROH Wrestling 500. During the pandemic, ROH made the most of their empty arena shows by kicking them off with a tournament to crown a champion for the revived Pure Championship. Gresham won the tournament, and this was his fourth defense of the title. Lethal and Gresham were still allies here. In an interesting move, the other match on this milestone episode was two other partners fighting in Jay and Mark Briscoe. They cut to a commercial break about six minutes in, though the action didn’t get beyond (admittedly fast-moving) mat wrestling until the 10-minute mark. That had me thinking this was going to go long, but things took a different turn. Both guys had abused the other’s shoulders, and Lethal used that to his advantage best. He forced Gresham to use his first rope break to stop a pin, and his second to escape a crab. Then, he used the failed Lethal Injection to bait Gresham into a crossface, forcing the champ to use his final rope break. But he made the mistake of giving Gresham a breather and was quickly caught in a head scissor takedown giving Gresham the winning pin at 14:06 (shown of 16:40). For an empty arena match, this held my attention. It was totally different than their previous matches while still using a couple elements from the rivalry to elevate it just a bit. Not essential viewing, but if you’re working your way through their series you shouldn’t skip it. ***¼ 
