Once every few decades a wrestler comes along who turns the sport into an art form. Dean Malenko is such a wrestling. In the great tradition of Danny Hodge and Les Thorton, Malenko is considered one of the greatest light-heavyweights of all time and, along with Tony Charles, Dynamite Kid and Tiger Mask, has proven that bigger is not necessarily better.

Son of legend the late Professor Boris �The Great� Malenko, he has spent his entire life in the business and brings a uniqur perspective to a sport that so many around the world have come to love. Last year, along with Eddie Guerrero, Christ Benoit and Perry Saturn, he finally brought his talents to the World Wrestling Federation. Recently, RAW Magazine was able to grab a few minutes of his time and ask him to reflect upon his life as the son of a wrestler and one of the most respected men in the business.

RAW Magazine: What was it like growing up in the business?

Dean Malenko: There were good and bad points in having my father in the business. Back in the mid- and late- 1960s there were a lot of independent territories, so we traveled a lot. There never really was one place to call home. When you�re on the road so much, you�re like a back of gypsies.

As I got older, it go difficult, because I�d start making friends, then after six months dad would tell us we�re packing and moving to a new territory. Sometimes I�d get pulled out of school in mid-year. It was like being an Army brat.

We lived in California, Texas, Florida and all over the Midwest. It wasn�t until �68 or �69 that we settled down in Tampa. Before that, we lived all over the United States. My brother and I pretty much grew up in the back of our station wagon.

The good points were that as a young boy I got to see a lot of places that most kids that age never get to experience, and I got to meet a lot of interesting people. Another good thing was that since we were traveling together all the time, we were a very close family.

RAW: Would you go to the shows and watch your father wrestle?

Malenko: I never really watched my dad wrestle much. He didn�t want me and my brother in that kind of environment. There were times when we did watch, but only because we would be traveling to the next town that day and didn�t get a hotel room. In that case, we�d watch the show. My first memory of actually watching him wrestler was somewhere in the Midwest when I was eight or nine years old. I didn�t really understand the business then; it was just what my dad did.

RAW: Why did you decide to get into the business?

Malenko: I�m probably one of the rare guys in the business who, believe it or not, wasn�t a fan of wrestling. You hear so many stories of guys who ate, slept and drank this, or remember details of the first three WrestleManias. I was never like that. I never had any aspiration of following in my dad�s footsteps.

I wrestled as an amateur from age 8 to 14. I wrestled for two years in high school, then was in a car wreck in �77 that took me away from amateur wrestling. At that point, I enjoyed learning the holds and moves, and the competitive aspect it took to beat somebody.

To be honest, I like traveling. I thought what a great way to make money, travel and see the world, while at the same time be in a competitive business and do something I liked. But as far as being someone who get into the business because it was something I always like, that wasn�t me.

RAW: What did your dad say when you started wrestling professionally?

Malenko: I think he was indifferent � neither happy nor upset. Whatever his kids wanted to do that made them happy, made him happy. I think that there was a part of him that enjoyed it, because I was doing something that he did. But like I said, if I had chosen another profession he would have been just as happy.

RAW: How did being a second-generation wrestler affect you when you first entered the business?

Malenko: If you�re a second-generation wrestler, you�re going to have a stigma attached to you from day one � Eddie Guerrero went through the same thing. For my first two years, I didn�t use my real name. I didn�t want that stigma. I wanted to succeed on my own without having to step in the ring every night and hear, �Oh yeah, that�s �The Great� Malenko�s son. He�s better than his dad.� Or, �He�s worse than his did.� Or, �I remember his dad, but I don�t care about [the son].� I wanted to have my own identity. With all that, there was never any though in my mind that I would never use the Malenko name. My dad had built the name for 30 years, but I wanted to get into the business on my own abilities.

RAW: When did you start wrestling?

Malenko: I started around 1980 in Florida and the Caribbean. Back then, there were a lot of independent organizations to work for.

RAW: Did you have to overcome any obstacles because of your size?

Malenko: No matter what anybody says about this business, whether it�s 1960 or 2000, there�s always going to be the belief that a guy can�t be a professional wrestler because he is 5-foot-8 or 5-foot-9 and weighs only 200 or some-odd pounds. I think that in the last five to ten years, guys like Eddie Guerrero, Chris Jericho and Shawn Michaels � who was one of the first guys to break the size barrier � proved that if you weren�t 6-8� and couldn�t bench press a car, you could still be a professional wrestler. I also think that the influence of Japanese, European and Mexican wrestlers has helped change that perspective as well.

But I think there will always be the belief that bigger is better. That�s one of the reasons why I chose to go to Japan and spend over 10 years of my career there. Size didn�t matter as much over there.

RAW: What was wrestling in Japan like?

Malenko: The Japanese wrestling at that time was the closest thing that resembled amateur wrestling. The theatrics and entertainment that you see here weren�t being played out in Japan. It was solely athletic ability that got you over with fans.

Unlike Chris Benoit and others who went to Japan and spent six to eight months in the dojo learning wrestling, I was fortunate that a lot of Japanese wrestlers came to Tamp where I lived. Instead of me going there, they came to the States. I had the opportunity to wrestle with many of their stars, including Takada Yamazaki and Maeda. So, I was very fortunate. I always liked the Japanese style of wrestling, what it represented, what it meant. I wanted my wrestling ability to be the main thing.

RAW: You�re known as one of the best � if not the best � technical wrestler in the world. What kind of training did you go through, or did you learn to wrestle on the fly?

Malenko: Because my dad had his school, which opened in 1978, I really didn�t need to have a trainer who stood over me, telling me what to do. Of course, I�d be lying if I said that my dad�s input wasn�t instrumental in what I�m doing today, but I never really had formal training. A lot of what I did was to take amateur moves that I�d learned and convert them to professional wrestling.

A lot of it was just going out there and watching different guys. One of the guys I really liked and tried to emulate was the great European wrestler, Tony Charles. He was 5�8� [and] 210 or 215, and was the fist guy my size I saw who could really captivate a crowd by the different moves he did. He was probably the first guy who got me interested in saying, �Yeah, I can de that size and do that.� I just liked the way he moved, and the different counters and strategy he had in the ring.

RAW: Do you feel that your style of chain wrestling is a dying art?

Malenko: I think what happens over the years it that fans change, like the styles of wrestling change. If you were to ask people who come to our shows if they�ve heard of guys from the �70s, they would probably say they vaguely remember them through their fathers and grandfathers. So the business is always changing.

I�ll always believe that there is a fan base for what I have to offer. The last couple of months, I�ve been doing more non-ring stuff and have had a lot of fun with it, showing fans something that they�ve never seen from me. I am having a good time doing it, but, it�s hard to predict the future. Will my style be accepted five or ten years from now? I don�t know. Things are so fast paced now. The fans will ultimately determine what the business produces.

RAW: Kurt Angle�s another amateur wrestler who has had great success here in the WWF. Have you ever talked to him about transmitting amateur moves into the professional arena?

Malenko: Not really. I think Kurt�s been really successful because: a) after winning the gold medal in the Olympics, you�re put on a pedestal; you�re a hero to fans in your country. And, b) he went out and did a lot of public speaking engagements and got great experience in talking to the public, which is such a big part of our business. It�s something that Kurt does well and fans really like it, too.

It goes without saying that he�s probably a rarity. There aren�t many guys who go from amateur to professional and make the transition as quickly and smoothly as he has.

RAW: You�ve been very successful here, probably as much for what you�ve done in the ring as out of it. How does that make you feel?

Malenko: You know, it�s funny�if you�d talked to me back in 1986 and asked me if I�d ever thought I�d have any inclination to work for the World Wrestling Federation, I would have said no way. I took a lot of pride in my wrestling moves. The Federation made it entertainment, and at the time I though that was a farce. Not that it was a bad thing, because I knew that they had to do what they did. But at that point, I didn�t agree with it.

But I�m also open to suggestion and have a very open mind. Everything in life changes � especially in the wrestling industry. From the time I stepped into the ring to now, there have been drastic changes. Wrestling and your in-ring ability may not be the most important point to get yourself across with fans. I understand that. I�m not bitter about it, because I was able to do a lot of things, visit a lot of places, meet a lot of people and wrestle a lot of great guys through the years. I would never look back and say I wish I had done this or that differently. I think it�s been a roller coaster, but a fun one.

RAW: Looking back, what are your thoughts about your move from WCW to the Federation?

Malenko: It was probably the best � and scariest � move I�ve ever made in the business. Anytime you jump from one company to another, you�re worries about whether they are going to accept you on the other side of the fence.

RAW: Did you know many of the guys here?

Malenko: Besides the three I jumped with, I knew Chris Jericho and Big Show. But wrestlers are like a fraternity, and through the years you share dressing rooms with guys on the independent circuit. No matter what company you work for, we�re all about the same thing; we�re all wrestlers and this is our job. There are a lot of guys who I�ve worked with in the past, and there are a lot of guys who I�ve never worked with and would like to.

RAW: How nervous were you coming here?

Malenko: I left a job where I had two more years left on my contract � guaranteed money. From the standpoint of where I was in my career, I wasn�t going to go out and take needless risks. But it was something I believed in. A year later, I think it definitely paid off for me and the others. I�ve been able to do a lot of things that I wasn�t able to do there.

I don�t think it�s any big secret that [in WCW] the more talent you had, the better chance that you might be held back. That�s not to say that there�s absolutely no egos and politics here, but they are checked in when you walked into the arena and that�s the way it should be. I�ve had nothing but good times here. I�m a businessperson, and I like the way they do business here. I like the way the McMahon family handles things night-in and night-out in the sports-entertainment business.

RAW: Have the four of you had the chance to reflect on your decision to come here?

Malenko: Maybe not all four of us sitting down, but on an individual basis, we look back and wonder about the �What ifs.� I think we all did what we had to do, what we needed to do, and what was in our hearts. Needless to say, we were definitely taking a risk by giving up guaranteed money and not knowing how we were going to be accepted, but one thing that we all gained back was our sanity.

RAW: You mentioned the Malenko Wrestling School earlier. Do you still operate it?

Malenko: I closed it about two years ago, because I was on the road so much. My dad opened up the school in 1978 and was always there in a very hands-on capacity. It was always Malenko�s Wrestling School, and to me it was important to be there. But it got to the point where I was leaving students in other people�s hands. I always said that when my dad passed away if there wasn�t a Malenko there to train people, then I didn�t want to keep the school open. I don�t think it�s fair to take somebody�s money and tell them that they are going to be trained by Dean Malenko if I�m not going to be there.

RAW: Are you involved in helping out some of the younger guys here?

Malenko: Our business is very funny. There aren�t too many times in any business where a guy wants to be told what he�s doing wrong. I do think, though, that when you have a closed mind, it limits your growth and ability to move ahead. If you asked me after 20 years if I knew all there was about wrestling, I�d tell you no, because the business is always changing. There are guys now doing things athletically that I never would have fathomed 20 years ago. Jeff Hardy is a great example. But that�s just another part of our business. Sometimes I help by having people pick my brain, and I�m more than happy to help out if somebody wants it.

RAW: Who are some of the best guys you�ve worked with?

Malenko: I always think that you have a lot of your best matches with guys you respect. Chris [Benoit] and Eddie [Guerrero] would be the first two guys I�d mention. We seem to follow each other � from Japan to ECW to WCW to here. These are two guys who are totally different, but one thing that they have in common is their love for the business. They go out every single night no matter what and give 100 percent. Something I really respect. I had some classic matches with Eddie in ECW. I�ve had some great matches with Chris as well. I was very fortunate to wrestle in Japan with Dynamite Kid, who taught me a lot. I was also fortunate to wrestle with the original Tiger Mask. These two guys really paved the way for the light-heavyweights and really made an impact in the business. Otani, Hakushi, Kobashi and Liger are just some of the great athletes in Japan with whom I�ve had some really memorable matches.

RAW: Is there anybody here that you haven�t wrestled but would really like to?

Malenko: Triple H would be a guy I�d like to wrestle one-on-one. He�s probably the best of what wrestling has to offer. I heard someone say this one time and it has a lot of validity to it: Hunter is probably the Ric Flair of our era. Ric was very influential in making guys who they are today because of his business-like ways and business sense in the ring. He was also smart enough to know that it is so important to have great matches, that when the other guy does well in the ring, so do you. I see a lot of Ric in Hunter.

RAW: How are you physically?

Malenko: Good, knock on wood. A kneescope is probably the most serious injury I�ve had in 20 years. I�ve been really blessed. I always hated missing days on which I was scheduled to wrestle, but I also know that the body has wears and tears. But I�m in pretty good shape now.

RAW: Have you given any though as to what you�d like to do after you stop competing in the ring?

Malenko: Maybe a male stripper. [laughs] Just kidding. I would still like to be involved in the business. I thought I�d never say this, but I do miss training people. I�d like to get back to it someday. My goal � and I really like working for this company � is to stay here helping the WWF�s young talent. I�d like to give back. I don�t want to be one of those guys who hangs on too long and is just looking after himself at the expense of others, I�d like to help people further themselves.

RAW: What advice would you give to a young man or woman who wants to get into this business?

Malenko: Whether getting into this business or anything that you have dreamed about doing, the thing to do is do it. You never want to look back wondering �What if.� You�ll never know if you�re going to succeed or not if you never try. I would just tell anybody to give it your best, and if you have a dream do it; you can�t fail as long as you try. If you try and don�t succeed you�re not a failure, at least you made the attempt. You will never know until you try.

RAW: Do you think that your father would be proud of your professional accomplishments?

Malenko: I think my dad always wanted to see me wrestle in the United States. He never did because he passed away in September 1994. I had just signed my first contract with WCW and started wrestling in the U.S., but he never got the chance to see me. It really bothered me that I was here without my dad around, because I think he really would have enjoyed the success I�ve had in the past six or seven years. But I know that every night that I step into the ring, he�s looking down and is proud of what I do.