[1998-09-14-WCW-Nitro] Billy Kidman vs Juventud Guerrera

[Loss]

Talk about it here.

[Loss]

Kidman is fresh off of leaving The Flock and wins the cruiserweight title from Juventud in a very good match. Juventud can be inconsistent, but this was a night where he was hitting everything clean and made Kidman look like a million bucks. I love how into the nearfalls the crowd got when they weren't really predisposed to react to it that much. Electric reaction for Kidman's win that rivals any reaction anyone has gotten in WCW all year outside of Goldberg and the reaction to a certain return later in the evening.

 

After the match, Gene tries to get the scoop on Flair's return and JJ won't talk.

[Tim Cooke]

Kidman made his face turn at Fall Brawl by drop kicking Raven. This is the match where he wins the cruiserweight title from Juventud. The finish had outstanding heat but they were given way too much time to work, as both guys didn’t have enough in their arsenal to fill the time to the best of their abilities. Kidman will go on to have his best WCW match in March 1999 against Rey Jr. on Nitro.

[soup23]

I liked this a lot. It was worked in a good face vs. face style but competitive with both guys aspiring to be the champion. Some tropes of Kidman matches that annoy me in later years creep in but I thought Juvy reigned him in and made him look great. Kidman winning gets a huge pop and we have a nice new star to fill out the undercard in WCW. (***1/2)

[Zenjo]

There was some decent stuff here and signs of what was to come later in the year from this rivalry. However they started off too quickly and slowed down near the end when they should have been speeding up. The structure and pacing in a lot of WCW Cruiserweight matches was all over the place.

[Superstar Sleeze]

WCW Cruiserweright Champion Juventud Guerrera vs Kidman - WCW Nitro 9/14/98

 

Gotta commend the WCW booking team on this one, exactly how you build on a hot babyface turn. They parlay the heat of Kidman's face turn and give him a run with the cruiserweight title and it gets a lot of fanfare. The match itself is a good match, but to me this one is more about the evolution of the Kidman character from misguided junkie to cleaned-up babyface making the most of his second chance. The crowd responded in turn by cheering him throughout and popping huge for his victory. It was a little weird that Kidman took most of the offense when he really did not have enough offense to carry a match at this point and plus as a sympathetic, underdog character you think getting some heat on him would make sense. I really liked Juvy's offense in other matches and would have him to get a couple more memorable spots in. Overall, it was paced as an even back and forth bout with Kidman in charge for the most of it and did not really kick in until Kidman reversed some Juvy's aerial moves into some sick suplexes. The reverse suplex out of the Juvy Driver was a great nearfall. I thought the finish was good shit, but did not really much else to support it. Still a great victory for Kidman and strong booking by WCW. They mentioned Juvy had a match with Silver King the night before at Fall Brawl and that piqued my interest. Is it any good?

[PeteF3]

A good match given time, but definitely uneven--the middle part drags because Kidman still isn't really a ring general and there's too much time doing nothing in-between highspots. That said, the pop for the title change (and some of the near-falls before that) is huge and Kidman seems like a good, fresh young face to build a Cruiserweight division around now that most of the old guard are working as heavies and actively refusing to compete for the title anymore. And while he spaces out his moves a little too much, I do like how good Kidman's basic offense--the elbow drops, leg drops, and suplexes--looks. He still wrestles like a product of his time rather than an indy ROHbot of today.