Two years ago, WWE created the Cruiserweight Classic, a 32-man tournament which ended up being for the revived Cruiserweight Championship. The tournament received rave reviews but it has not been brought back since. With 205 Live’s recent surge in quality, bringing back the Cruiserweight Classic would give the most exciting hour on television an additional boost.
The WWE Cruiserweight Classic was the first of its kind on the Network. With the mass of previously aired content and monthly pay-per-view events, the CWC was the first weekly episodic tournament to take place to air on the streaming service.
What set the Cruiserweight Classic apart from other WWE content from the start was its presentation. The Classic was treated as an actual sporting event. The ring was adorned with CWC and Tapout logos, competitors were prompted to shake hands before every match and the commentary team of Daniel Bryan and Mauro Ranallo kept the focus on the matches themselves.
In lieu of the lengthy show-opening promos wrestling fans are subjected to on a weekly basis, short interviews probing each competitor’s background created the storylines for the matches. That frees up more time for the actual competition side of the programming.
The tournament featured a diverse range of competitors in terms of nationality—with 16 countries represented between all 32 men—and notoriety. Kota Ibushi and Zack Sabre Jr. were among the cult favorites, The Brian Kendrick and Taijiri were among the beloved veterans and Ho Ho Lun was among the virtual unknowns to look out for.
Moments including Cedric Alexander’s emotional loss to Kota Ibushi—which prompted deafening “Please Sign Cedric” chants—as well as the embrace between Daniel Bryan and the Brian Kendrick after the latter’s quarterfinal defeat made the Cruiserweight Classic special. The passion and the drive of all competitors involved was all that was needed to lay the foundation for a new Cruiserweight division.
TJP—then known as TJ Perkins—claimed the re-incarnated Cruiserweight Championship in the finals against Gran Metalik. With a champion in place, the puzzle to a new Cruiserweight division was complete. However, as the months progressed, WWE began stripping away the pieces that made the Cruiserweight Classic special and watered the division down to being a caricature of what it once was.
Fast forward to today: Triple H taking the helm of the Cruiserweight division’s creative direction in early 2018 has sent it an upward direction. But aside from 205 Live, there doesn’t seem to be a large commitment to the division itself. The Cruiserweight title has only been defended twice on PPV since the beginning of the year, both on the Kickoff Pre-Show. If an entire brand’s top title can’t even crack the main card despite its matches being worthy of such, it is nearly impossible to entice new viewers.
As New Japan Pro Wrestling has done with its widely acclaimed Best of the Super Juniors tournament, WWE could bring back the Cruiserweight Classic as a yearly tournament where the winner receives a Cruiserweight Championship match at a major pay-per-view like SummerSlam or WrestleMania. While New Japan’s tournament is round robin as opposed to single-elimination, the BOSJ makes New Japan’s Junior Heavyweights feel important which is something WWE desperately needs to do with its cruiserweights.
The Cruiserweight Classic was great at creating excitement. As loaded as WWE’s roster is now, there’s still an entire world of buzz-worthy cruiserweight talent they could seek out to beef up the tournament (Shane Strickland, anyone?). They can also pull from 205 Live, NXT and NXT: UK—as all three brands are ripe with talent—to reliably produce high-caliber tournament matches.
WWE ran a 16-man Cruiserweight tournament earlier this year but it was not nearly as full-blown as the Cruiserweight Classic. Bringing back the Cruiserweight Classic is the perfect way to prove that the members of the roster deserve bigger stages and more opportunities to shine.