These CW matches aren't particuarly good

[Magic knows Black Lives Matter]

For real, they aren't. On Raw or 205 Live. Pretty much everything I've seen has been average for WWE 2016. That wouldn't be an issue but the matches kinda need to be a bit better than average to justify this division. They need matches that you would go out of your way to see and it's just not there.

Maybe somebody should teach these vanilla midgets how to f***ing work...

 

[Deleted]

At least since the CWC days they've learned it's possible for a match to end in a way other than someone missing a dive off the top rope.

[chazraps]

I don't think it's the matches, I think it's the presentation.

The reason the WCW cruiserweight division excelled is because the in-house Turner Sports production team filmed the action like an actual sporting contest, giving wider shots and more distance, showing the athleticism of the flights and the speed.

The shortcomings of the 1997 Light-Heavyweight Division and the current division today is because they're being framed and directed all wrong. If you're getting a guy jumping over the top rope to the outside, why would you do a close-up zoom on him? While not give us some depth perception about how far their dive is?

When you got intense back-and-forth action in the ring, why only show them from the shoulder up? It's not about the expressions of their face, but the expressions of their body.

When the camera shots are whipping back and forth like a machine gun to show different angles, it's going faster than the guys themselves in the ring. That speed is needed for the heavyweights whose style moves at a slower pace and helps create the show's tempo, but the whole point of the cruiserweights is that they can keep that pace up themselves, and putting the editing on top of that actually slows down their ring speed.

There's a reason why the matches seem to do so well with the live crowd (and why Rich Swann is so over by the second bell) and it not quite translating it to TV, and I think this is it.

[Deleted]

The division stinks. I think the matches are fine, but there's just not much to separate it from anything else. It's not even that they're better or worse, they're just not different enough and I'm not sure how to achieve that unless they just become complete spotfests, and I just don't think the wrestling landscape needs an excuse for more spotfests. Abolish the division and keep Kendrick, Cedric, Swann, Gallagher, Gran Matallik and Gulak around, that's what I say.

To say the matches need to be better requires an idea of what this division even should be and I just don't think there's anything about it that needs to stick around.

[Sephiroth]

I'm increasingly of the opinion that the CW belt should have been an NXT exclusive

[Lazy peon]

Yeah, they are "average" because WWE's in ring product has really good the past couple years so there's nothing really special about these CW matches.

[Clash, Never a Meter Maid]

WCW also had the advantage of a smaller ring, so the wrestlers could get more speed running the ropes. If you were a cruiserweight, you were in heaven.

[Pushed to the Moon]

Too many rest holds. Not enough unique flippy shit. They're not doing anything different to anyone else.

[SAJ Forth]

The presentation also makes them a side act, instead of equal to the rest of the show.

[EoE: Well There's Your Problem]

I might have said this already, but WWE haven't been doing anything particularly BAD with the cruiserweight division. The division isn't being treated as a joke, they're all good wrestlers getting decent match time and they haven't been reduced to hoss fodder.

But I think in trying to present them as something unique from the rest of the show with the different ring setup, that raises expectations of them being something completely different from everything else, and other than Gallagher, they really aren't. I think that's what the main disconnect is. What makes these guys so special when a lot of the non-cruiserweight roster can do that stuff too?

Keep the belt and keep 205 Live, but integrating them into the rest of the roster by having matches against guys not in the division and keeping their ring setup to 205 Live could help.

[Tiger Millionaire]

When you have 280lb(that is how much they bill him at) Kevin Owens doing cruiserweight type moves, and Roman Reigns does suicide dives; what are you going to do? How do you make it different without making it look overproduced?

[Sicho100]

Dec 18, 2016 14:56:48 GMT -5 Lazy peon said:

Yeah, they are "average" because WWE's in ring product has really good the past couple years so there's nothing really special about these CW matches.

Yeah. Like a lot of people say (I know Bryan Alvarez mentions it just about every week), the cruiserweights of twenty years ago were a big change of pace. Going from the slower paced heavyweight style that tended to dominate the shows then to the small guys bouncing around and doing nice dives made those small guys stand out. Now, when your "Heavyweight" division has stars like Kevin Owens, Seth Rollins, and AJ Styles, and even the mid-level heavyweight matches have guys like Sami Zayn, Neville, and Cesaro, what is special about the cruiserweights?

[Deleted]

When it comes to Cruiserweight wrestling, I want spotfests pure and simple. We aren't getting that. We are getting the same stuff the other guys already do, except with people we have no emotional investment in.

[mrbananagrabber]

I already tuned out after the first episode. Is there any plot or point to the show at all, or is just random guys fighting for no reason?

[Pooh Carlson]

Dec 18, 2016 15:29:00 GMT -5 Tiger Millionaire said:

When you have 280lb(that is how much they bill him at) Kevin Owens doing cruiserweight type moves, and Roman Reigns does suicide dives; what are you going to do? How do you make it different without making it look overproduced?

This is a really good point. In WCW, Hogan and Goldberg weren't jumping over the ropes. The Cruiserweights were actually unique in that that's the only place to see those moves.

[Deleted]

Dec 18, 2016 16:51:12 GMT -5 mrbananagrabber said:

I already tuned out after the first episode. Is there any plot or point to the show at all, or is just random guys fighting for no reason?

It seems the biggest point of the show is to force us to wait an hour for Talking Smack.

[bearned]

I think the matches are fine. They are trying to flesh the division out with 205 live and start building some actual storylines beyond just the title. The problem has been they dumped them on RAW before they had thought this through (my opinion) and as much as the guys all have talent, if the crowd has no idea who they are they are going to get no reaction.

[H-Virus]

I can't speak for anyone else, but when I think Cruiserweight and Lucha Libre, the most prominent word that comes to mind is 'speed'. I expect the guys in the ring to be in constant motion; running, jumping, sliding, chain-wrestling, reversals and, obviously, utilizing the ropes for their 'flippy shit'. That's what made WCW's Cruiserweights and TNA's X-Division so popular back in their days. Unfortunately, we're barely getting any of that, so the only difference between them and the rest of the roster is the color of the ropes they wrestle inside.

[Fade]

Dec 18, 2016 16:01:16 GMT -5 @therealoblivion said:

When it comes to Cruiserweight wrestling, I want spotfests pure and simple. We aren't getting that. We are getting the same stuff the other guys already do, except with people we have no emotional investment in.

Boom, son. Also I think the weight limit might have been a bad idea

[xCompackx]

I may have said this before, but I can't stand how "trying too hard" the entire presentation feels. They have different ropes, lights, turnbuckle/apron/stage graphics, and a different ring mat to try and convince people that it's different from the main roster, but... it isn't. Most of the top roster actually does the same stuff that the CW guys do on a weekly basis. It sucks too that nobody seems to be allowed to do anything interesting and it really kills the crowd, especially with 205 Live being after SmackDown so the crowd's already tired.