If you were a fan of the Attitude Era and the Monday Night Wars, then you will recognize the return of a division that was huge during the Monday Night Wars. On this Monday’s Raw, the cruiserweight division will be coming back after being not used for almost ten years. The last wrestler that was counted to be the cruiserweight champion was Hornswoggle in 2007.
This past Wednesday on the WWE Network, wrestling fans saw the conclusion of the WWE Cruiserweight Classic (CWC) as 32 of the top competitors from around the world would compete at Full Sail University in a single-elimination tournament. This competition saw the likes of Zack Sabre Jr (United Kingdom), Kota Ibushi (Japan), Gran Metalik (Mexico), Noam Dar ( Israel) and some NXT superstars. The finals of the CWC took place on this episode as it was TJ Perkins (Philippines) go up against Gran Metalik (Mexico) after both superstars defeated Zack Sabre Jr and Kota Ibushi in the semi-finals. TJ Perkins would go on to beat Gran Metalik and become the 1st winner of the CWC and be the cruiserweight champion.
WWE would go ahead and announced that TJ Perkins, The Brian Kendrick, Gran Metalik, Lince Dorado, Cedric Alexander, Rich Swann, and Noam Dar would indeed make their debuts on RAW this Monday night. The feeling is Jack Gallagher, Akira Tozawa, and Tajiri also is going to be joining RAW for the Cruiserweight division at some point. Also, the feeling is Johnny Gargano, and Tommaso Ciampa will make their presence in the Cruiserweight division soon. However, they are still in a feud with the Revival ( Current NXT Tag Champions) and Johnny Gargano got married today. They could appear on RAW this Monday, but are not confirmed.
If you were lucky enough to watch the Cruiserweight Classic on the WWE Network, then you saw some of the best wrestling in a long time. It will be interesting to see how it plays out on RAW. There are two other parts to look at, and they are what WWE wrestlers will be involved in the Cruiserweight division and will Smackdown Live get any of them.
As far as what wrestlers that are on the main roster who may be included in this division, I figure we will see Nevile, Sin Cara, Jericho, and Sami Zayn on the RAW brand. If Smackdown Live does get the opportunity to get some of the Cruiserweight wrestlers, the only ones I could think of are Apollo Crews and AJ Styles.
The cruiserweight division was huge in the late 1990’s as it saw several wrestlers cement their legacies that include Rey Mysterio, Eddie Guerrero, Chris Jericho, Dean Malenko, and others. Some of the matches that featured the cruiserweight wrestlers have gone down as some of the best matches. It will be interesting to see if WWE can recapture what WCW was able to have in the late 90’s.