End the Cruiserweight Division

[celtics543]

The vanilla midgets will never get over.


Now that we've got that out of the way I think the cruiserweight division is dead in the water. Someone brought it up last night in the Survivor Series thread and it made a lot of sense to me so I think it deserves it's own thread. Cruiserweight wrestling was special when it was Rey, Juvy, Eddie, Jericho, Malenko, and those guys doing it because the top guys at the time weren't doing any of the same things. Hogan, Piper, Savage, Nash, Hall, Sting, Luger, Austin, Rock, HHH, Big Show, Undertaker, and Kane didn't wrestle like cruiserweight. They were big guys who wrestled like big guys. None of them were doing suicide dives or top rope planchas or moonsaults. They were mostly grounded and worked body parts, using their charisma to get over. Today the main event style has changed and with Rollins, Owens, Balor, Jericho, Styles, and the like which means that what the cruiserweight guys are doing isn't special or unique anymore.

Now it's just guys doing the same moves that main eventers do but we have even less reason to care about them because their characters haven't been built up at all. They either need to start building up the characters or end the division all together.

If the WWE wants something different then they really should bring back the hardcore division because no one is doing that kind of stuff anymore. A guy could stand out being the hardcore guy much easier than being the guy who does a bunch of flips because everyone is doing a bunch of flips. I mean how many matches last night featured several people diving over the top rope onto someone or multiple someones on the outside of the ring? All of them except Goldberg and Lesnar pretty much.

[ronin705]

The highlighted players of the tourney were Cedric, Rich, Ibushi, Gallagher, and Tozawa. Only one of em gets regular TV time,and one kinda killed the whole tournament by not signing, so do the math from there.

[The Spelunker!]

It'll be fine as long as they get storylines. Right now, no ones really gotten a chance to develop a character. They just signed a ton of guys, and as long as 205 live isn't just soulless multi man matches, things can definitely get better.

[Urethra Franklin]

I think part of the problem is that the division has been segregated entirely from the rest of the company.

Emphasize that these guys are WWE wrestlers and not solely there because they weigh 205 lbs or less.

Now, I don't wanna see Baron Corbin laying waste to the division every week, but they're being positioned like they're a completely separate group and it's difficult to take the division seriously as such.

[Ryback on a Pole!]

They dropped the ball even before debuting the title by not introducing the cruiserweights earlier.

As soon as they knew they were bringing back the cruiserweights they should have slowly started debuting them so that the crowd could get to know them. Debut a few in the tag division, give a couple a midcard push and keep the ones already on the roster like Neville and Kalisto relevant.

I also think the first champ should have been an established name to make the division look a big deal straight away. For me personally, Chris Jericho or Sami Zayn.

[Shai]

The only CW that has a completely fleshed out character is The Brian Kendrick.

[vincecornette]

Making them separate from the rest of the roster is WWE telling the fans the CW title only good for to have as their own protected division. May as well call it the 'special' or 'minis' title. Since they have had Balor, Rey Mysterio as their top champions there is already a precedent made that if you are good enough you can reach the top of the mountain, the CW title now feels like a prize for those who have no chance.

[Ken: The Hero of WWE]

They honestly should get rid of the division. Calling the small guys "cruiserweights" only stigmatizes them more in the eyes of the fans and not letting them feud with already established talent severely hurts their chances of getting over. There's just so much talent in the division (Alexander, Metalik, Swann, etc.) that I see just being stuck in the CW division for entirety, which sucks.

[Surfer Sandman]

Nov 21, 2016 9:03:00 GMT -5 Shai said:

The only CW that has a completely fleshed out character is The Brian Kendrick.

TJ Perkins is pretty close with his goofy theme and winning the tournament. Other than that, yeah. They need to do something quick.

[The Dark Order Inferno]

...And people criticise Vince for killing angles at the drop of a hat and killing pushes because they're not getting over fast enough. Seriously, give them time to find their feet and some worthwhile angles and the audience will start to respond to them, same as anyone else on the roster.

I don't understand why having a division is saying they can't hang with the rest of the roster, that was never the impression I got from WCWs division, heck, no-one gets that impression from the Tag team division either or TNA's X-division, just have former champions go on to win matches against larger men and other gold in the company and they'll be fine, same as Guerrero, Misterio, Pillman, Flamingo, Jericho, Malenko, X-pac... And so on.

[celtics543]

I guess my main point was that 20 years ago the style was different from what the heavyweights worked and now it's the same thing, making the division less unique. It's not that I don't enjoy the actual talent they have but the cruiserweight division used to be special because it was different than the main event. Now it's the the same style of work. For instance, Hogan wasn't going to do a springboard dive to the outside, whereas Seth Rollins certainly will. The WCW cruisers wouldn't have gotten over either if this was a problem then.

[Sephiroth]

The division and title haven't been around a year yet, so its a tad early to go calling it off. That said, they do need to improve how they present it. I actually think a more established main roster star like Kalisto competing for it is a step in the right direction. I'd even be fore Enzo Amore or perhaps even Xavier Wood getting shots at the title to help further integrate it and raise its prominence. That said, I am not sure bringing a cruiserweight belt back at all was a good idea; with separate titles for both shows and WWE's having of having to have all the champions put in some kind of appearance on virtually every broadcast, it just leaves things way too crowded and certain belts are inevitably going to get elbowed out of the spotlight. What's more, the modern style of wrestling has sapped the appeal of cruiserweights because now virtually everyone does high flying style moves (Balor, Rollins, Ambrose, etc) whereas in the 90's when the cruiserweights where a real draw it was something new and different.

[Big Bad Kahuna]

I'd prefer them on 205 Live every week. That should be enough, and no oversaturation

[Zone Was Wrong]

It just needs reworked. Devote time to create characters, use more in house cruiserweights, and don't make them the butt of jokes to someone like Corbin unless someone in the division humbles him afterwards.

[Reflecto]

Nov 21, 2016 8:20:13 GMT -5 Urethra Franklin said:

I think part of the problem is that the division has been segregated entirely from the rest of the company.

Emphasize that these guys are WWE wrestlers and not solely there because they weigh 205 lbs or less.

Now, I don't wanna see Baron Corbin laying waste to the division every week, but they're being positioned like they're a completely separate group and it's difficult to take the division seriously as such.

By that token, what the division could use to help both: Formally make some tag teams and send them into the tag team divisions.

Through the multi-man matches, we can already see at least a couple groups who are a team in everything except making it official. Gulak and Nese basically wrestle alongside each other all the time, but haven't officially been named as a tag team- and since Sin Cara joined the division, he and Lince Dorado do the same (only also will sometimes dress alike to match, which makes the "they're officially a team" help more.

You can count a third one possibly, even if it's a gray area: Swann and Alexander will team up together on Raw, but they had separate partners on NXT in the Classic (but depending on how well you thought Swann and No Way Jose worked together, there's still a third team to go from it.)

This way, you have teams to help them assimilate to the company, but not immediately throw them to the singles ranks and keep the cruiserweight title important.

[MrElijah]

I think it's way too early in killing it.

I mean the 1st WCW Cruiserweight title change happend on Worldwide. The C show.

[Lancers]

Most of the top guys in the WWE work more like the biggest cruiserweight stars of WCW (Benoit, Guerrero, Malenko) which makes the actual cruiserweights quite redundant. I say scrap the cruiserweight division by having them all fed to Braun Strowman. Literally. As in Braun unhinges his jaw and the cruiserweights one by one are consumed whole.

[AtomSmasher]

Its almost like assigning them the 'cruiserweight' designation is preventing them from being anything else character wise.
Kendrick is decent, but although TJP has a gimmick of sorts, its related to video games, which is a bit of a cliched Cruiserweight trope.
It will be interesting to see Jack Gallagher, who at least has a definable gimmick AND wrestles in a definable manner...

[Dave the Dave]

Yeah when Rollins, Cesaro and Owens are doing high spots it takes some shine from the division.

With Kendrick at the helm though it doesn't have to be about high spots. That's what people expect though. Sadly I don't see them getting the time to change that perception.

[543Y2J]

Once 205 Live starts they should just be on 205 Live/NXT exclusively. They can't work on Raw and they won't be given to SD