Five Reasons Why A Openweight Championship Should Replace The Cruiserweight Championship
WWE should utilize the openweight division as an opportunity to create more openings for wrestlers on the show.
The Cruiserweight Championship was created in 2016, shortly after the Cruiserweight Classic, which T.J Perkins won. The championship was originally defended on Monday Night Raw as part of the Raw brand but soon would be moved to the 205 Live Brand as an exclusive championship. In 2019 the Cruiserweight division was moved to NXT, and the championship became the NXT Cruiserweight championship.
The latest episode of NXT 2.0 revealed on the latest episode of NXT 2.0 that the NXT North American Championship and the NXT Cruiserweight Championship will be unified at the NXT 2.0 New Year’s Evil event. The NXT Cruiserweight title has gone through plenty of revisions before this point, so it would make sense for WWE to retire the championship. In this article, I will discuss the five reasons WWE should replace the Cruiserweight Championship with an Open weight championship.
5. More opportunities for wrestlers
The Open weight championship concept was created in New Japan Pro Wrestling and since has been an essential piece to how new wrestlers are introduced in Japan. The open weight championship would allow heavyweight, middleweight, and lightweight wrestlers to challenge for the title. The WWE could use the title to introduce new wrestlers to the NXT fanbase and help build a solid open weight division around new wrestlers.
4. Something Fresh
The WWE has never had a Championship like the Open weight Championship; it could become the NXT version of Impact wrestling X division. The WWE has some of the best Cruiserweight wrestlers in professional wrestling today. The WWE could use the Open weight championship to showcase the talent that was on 205 Live and NXT mid-card talent that fans may have forgotten about in a tournament to crown an Openweight champion.
3. Elevate Younger Wrestlers
The WWE should use 2022 to remind fans why they are the number one wrestling company in the world. WWE should allow NXT 2.0 to create an Openweight championship and highlight younger up-and-coming talent from all around the world. NXT should be allowed to recruit freelance wrestlers to come and compete at the chance of winning the Openweight championship because it would keep fans tuned in to see who will challenge for the championship next.
When WWE created NXT 2.0, the idea was that they wanted fresh wrestlers whom they could develop themselves instead of signing top Indy wrestlers. This would be the perfect way to introduce new wrestlers into the NXT brand.
2. Opportunity to open the Forbidden door in NXT.
Over the last year, there has been a lot of talk about the world of professional wrestling having a Forbidden door because of the business moves Tony Khan has made with New Japan, ROH, NWA, and New Japan. The WWE has been criticized for never working with other wrestling companies, but that isn’t true because WWE has opened their Forbidden door to wrestlers not under contract with WWE, for example, Jushin Thunder Liger competing in NXT.
The WWE has a perfect chance to open the forbidden door once again and have wrestlers from MLW come in and compete for the Openweight Championship. If WWE wants NXT 2.0 to be loved like the golden NXT, then they need to do something exciting that fans would never expect and open up the forbidden door for wrestlers not under a WWE contract to come in and wrestle for the Openweight championship would be that.
1. An NXT 2.0 Exclusive Championship
On September 15th, WWE debuted NXT 2.0, and it featured a lot of new stars, primarily names that diehard NXT fans had never even heard of before. The highlight of the introduction night was the debut of Bron Breaker, who would defeat LA Knight. The drastic change to NXT warranted much backlash from fans and has continued throughout its first four months. While a lot of it is similar to the stuff fans have become tired of seeing on Raw and Smackdown, most of it isn’t anywhere close to what wrestling fans have seen on the leading roster brand in years. The main driving force behind NXT’s popularity as an alternative to what WWE was showing on Monday and Friday nights.
Vince McMahon has one of the greatest minds in professional wrestling, but when it comes to wrestling in 2021, Vince is out of touch and needs wrestling legends like HBK and Triple H to run NXT. They listen to the fans. There is no denying that NXT needed a shake-up, and losing the Wednesday Night War to AEW didn’t help either. As much as Triple H may deny it, NXT was affected by AEW Dynamite and the success that it went on to have. In 2022 NXT 2.0 needs to establish its championship exclusive to its brand. When wrestling fans think of the Openweight championship, they need to think of NXT 2.0.