This year has been a roller coaster for many WWE fans. There was the rebirth of the Women’s Championship at WrestleMania 31, New Day became the longest reigning WWE Tag Team Champions in company history, AJ Styles arrived, Shane McMahon returned to name a few. Perhaps the most impactful development has been the renaissance of the Cruiserweight Division.
During the summer, 32 wrestlers from all around the world—hand chosen by Triple H and William Regal—participated in a ground-breaking tournament that brought a sense of revival to the sport. The WWE Cruiserweight Classic was one of the best programs that the WWE Network had to offer, completing its programming with numerous classic matchups: Johnny Gargano vs Tommaso Ciampa, Kota Ibushi vs Cedric Alexander, and my favorite, Noam Dar vs Zack Sabre Jr. While epics such as these were going on, vignettes ran on Raw promoting the cruiserweights’ debut on the flagship show, intriguing wrestling fans even more. The lights were shining bright for the whole division, but it became flat like a soda.
Overnight.
TJ Perkins was the brightest star of the tournament, winning the inaugural WWE Cruiserweight Championship. But where are the other three semi-finalists? Ibushi has only been seen on NXT for a couple cups of coffee. Gran Metalik debuted on Raw the opening night and hasn’t been seen since. Sabre Jr. went back to the indies. If WWE wanted an innovative division, why not sign the final four combatants of the tournament and place them as the forefathers of the division? WWE should have paid the money for Ibushi and Sabre Jr. to leave Japan and the indies to make the division look more credible.
Instead of signing the final four, WWE booked competitors who didn’t make it past the first round, like the Bollywood Boyz. On top of that, Perkins’ first major challenger was The Brian Kendrick, a man who hasn’t been credible since 2006. Any one of the final four would have made sense, especially Gran Metalik, who was defeated by Perkins in the tournament final.
Once WWE Creative got hold of the division, the handcuffs were put on right away. The matches are not as high flying and entertaining as they were during the tournament. The storylines are not captivating. It’s a shame because WWE has guys in that division that can put on 5-star matches every night of the week, but the company is afraid Perkins and Co. may outshine the matches Roman Reigns and Kevin Owens put on.
Bringing the Cruiserweight Division back was a fantastic idea, and its placement on Raw made a lot of sense for a three-hour show. However, WWE dropped the ball ever since Perkins was declared champion. The failures of signing the big dogs of the tournament and the lack of creative direction for the division as a whole has made the division stale after only four months. Let’s hope 2017 brings bigger and better things for this division because, let’s face it, the division should be the show stealer of Raw.
Jay Mackle
Latest posts by Jay Mackle (see all)
- Mackle: WWE Dropped The Ball With the Cruiserweights - December 20, 2016
