Who Cares About The Cruiserweight Division?

The Cruiserweights arrived on Raw this past Monday.

So what?

The Cruiserweight Classic featured some of the best wrestling and storytelling on WWE TV this year. The whole thing felt different. From the format to the announcers, to the wrestling. It was a home run event and a home run finale.

Then, Monday happened.

Mick Foley immediately flubbed a couple of lines, called them small, and then read off cue cards as he introduced the first four Cruiserweights to grace Raw. It was a weak introduction, done by a man who seemed to know nothing about the new talent and the new division that he was trying to promote. Rich Swann, Cedric Alexander, Gran Metalik, and Brian Kendrick were met with a tepid reaction and then worked hard to get half-assed “this is awesome” chants.

It was like we’d been eating prime cut steak for ten weeks and were now being fed a McDonald’s steak. And yes, I know McDonald’s doesn’t do steak, but that’s my entire point.

Raw shouldn’t do Cruiserweights.

Do you think Daniel Bryan would’ve needed notecards to introduce the four competitors? Do you think Mauro Ranallo would’ve felt as scripted as Michael Cole when calling the action or delivering anecdotes? Ranallo and Bryan called all the action during the CWC. They would’ve given the Cruiserweights the introduction that they deserved, not the introduction that they got.

Why should we care about these guys? Not only did Foley come off clueless, but they gave the audience no reason to get behind any of the four. Had you never watched the CWC, and this was your first time seeing these guys (and it’s not unreasonable to think that part of the audience has never seen Bryan Kendrick considering that he was last seen on WWE TV in 2009), you probably came away pretty unimpressed during their initial introduction. Rich Swann was a dancing Kofi Kingston, Gran Metalik was a Sin Cara copy, Cedric Alexander was a mini Apollo Crews, and Brian Kendrick was an even weirder Bo Dallas.

Foley tried to make the match seem important, stating that the winner would face TJ Perkins for the Cruiserweight Title at Clash of Champions.

That sounds really good, except for the fact that Perkins was nowhere to be seen. Who is TJ Perkins? He’s the Cruiserweight Champion, but what’s he look like? How did he win the title?

All I learned about the Cruiserweights from Raw is that Gran Metalik is the king of the ropes and they like to do a lot of flips and chops. The announcers gave me no reason to care during the match and RAW gave me no reason to care in the weeks leading up to the match. We heard that the Cruiserweights were coming, we got a couple of quick video packages that most of the audience probably missed, and then we got a weak introduction.

This is not a knock on Kendrick, Metalik, Swann, and Alexander. They worked hard, and while I hate the “guy(s) stay on the outside while a one-on-one match is worked” format, they all did their best. The crowd got into it a bit during the dives, but otherwise, they were met with silence. I don’t blame them for that, though. I blame WWE for the way they handled this whole thing.

I see the positives and negatives of Kendrick winning. On one hand, he’s the established veteran who people might know, and when Perkins beats him, it comes off as a big deal. On the other hand, it felt like something we’ve seen before and once again did nothing to establish the division as new and exciting.

The Cruiserweight division stood out in the past because wrestling was dominated by big men. AJ Styles is the current WWE World Champion. Finn Balor would be the WWE Universal Champion if not for an injury. Styles is billed at 218 lbs while Balor is billed as 190 lbs. Why aren’t they in the Cruiserweight division? What makes this division so important when guys who are just as small are winning World Titles?

WWE waited until the third hour, always the death hour, to introduce the Cruiserweights and completely dropped the ball. The whole thing felt poorly thought out from the start. From giving the division to Raw despite the CWC and Smackdown connections to the build up to their Raw debut to their eventual introduction on Monday. WWE has basically told us, “these guys are small, but they’re good wrestlers. So you should be excited, and you should cheer for them.”

The Cruiserweights are here, and I don’t care.