>>14423941Malenko was never good in the ring.
He was a capable move-doer who knew a lot of moves and routines.
He had no expression, ever, they worked it into his gimmick as Iceman but that doesn't work in the ring like people think it does- he wasn't selling himself as cold, detached etc. He came across as a guy who was going through a rehearsal routine and wanted to get the routine finished and go back to shower & change. Nothing he did looked like it had any effort or intensity to it, but it didn't look like some effortless showman or cold sociopath either. He just looked like a guy practicing moves.
His chain wrestling was equally shit. Me-you-me-you-me-you pause. Very rarely varied the pattern or rhythm, if he did it was just to blankly cycle through a couple holds, you could set a metronome to his sequences. And again all without any selling or reacting or facials.
A good wrestler gets you emotionally invested in the match. Malenko never did that, all he did was make you go "Ooh, moves", he's the worst posterboy for modern wrestling. ZSJ did his blank hold-cycle crap until he got a clue and began to emote & express himself and immediately became 10x better. Indy darlings do his shit and it never looks good.
He's a shit road agent too because he blatantly never coached anyone else to emote either, just do moves. And he can't even really structure a match because if he can't emote, express, or react, he can't react to the crowd or get them invested.
The guy's only rated highly because of his WCW friends and Meltzer popping for moves.
