5 WWE Superstars who love Chris Benoit and 5 who disliked him

#4 Love Benoit: Dean Malenko

Dean Malenko had a similar career journey to Chris Benoit.

Dean Malenko stood alongside Perry Saturn, Eddie Guerrero, and Chris Benoit in jumping from WCW to WWE as The Radicalz. They went from a crew of particularly undervalued WCW stars, to playing Triple H’s mercenaries, to earning their own distinct spots on the WWE roster.

Of them, Malenko was the eldest and most experienced wrestler. He largely got lumped in with his peers as a top tier up and coming cruiserweight performer who rose to national fame in WCW. He was actually already broaching forty, though, with twenty years of ring experience, when he signed with WWE.

It may be for these reasons that Malenko didn’t ever exceed the mid-card in WWE. Nonetheless, the vantage point of greater experience he could appreciate Benoit’s comparable precision, attention to detail, and similarly diverse range of places where he’d worked to hone his craft. The two worked side by side in WCW’s Four Horsemen and Revolution stables before exploding onto the scene in WWE.