Name Five Great Nitro Matches
Somebody mentioned this on my forums and while I thought it was easy to do, the more I thought about it the harder this challenge became. The obvious one is Bret vs. Benoit in the Owen match, but other than the classics from Nitro are few and far between.
What lists do you guys have? I can rack my brain and probably come up with five but this is a lot harder than I was expecting. On Raw I can probably give you a top ten of great matches from just Shawn Michaels but for Nitro it’s not so easy. Thoughts/suggestions other than Bret vs. Benoit?
Hey KB — interesting question. A couple years ago my friends and I watched hundreds of Nitro matches and narrowed its best output to a list of 200 and shot five YouTube videos discussing our list. Here’s a link to the final one which covers our top ten. This is the best of the best from our research/viewings:
10. Billy Kidman v. Juventud Guerrera (09/14/98)
9. Rey Mysterio jr v. Billy Kidman (03/15/99)
8. Chris Benoit v. Fit Finlay (06/15/98)
7. Dean Malenko v. Chris Benoit (01/12/98)
6. Chris Benoit v. Curt Hennig (10/06/97)
5. Ric Flair v. Sting (11/06/95)
4. Brian Pillman v. Jushin Liger
3. Bret Hart v. Chris Benoit (03/01/99)
2. Eddie Guerrero v. Chris Benoit (10/16/95)
1. Bret Hart v. Chris Benoit (10/04/99)
In hindsight, Nitro seemed to rely more on big angles than big matches.
I would also include the Bret vs. Benoit match from the October 4, 1999 edition of Nitro, and that’s basically the greatest match in Nitro history. Four other matches I can think of are:
Benoit vs.Guerrero (this was from an episode of Nitro in either September or October of 95, but it was great)
Kidman vs. Juventud Guerrera (9/14/98)
Brian Pillman vs. Jushin Liger (9/4/95)
Flair vs. Guerrero (5/20/96)
Mysterio vs. Malenko (July 96)