You’re An Idiot And Here’s Why 10.04.07: WWE Cruiserweights

We conclude our three-part series of What The Fuck Is Fucking Wrong With The Fucking WWE, with Part III: The Cruiserweight Division. You might remember Part I as being the Tag Team Division and Part II seeing me take on the Divas. This week I pick on skinny white guys and midgets. Next week, kids in wheelchairs and pregnant mothers.

This Week’s Idiot: Cruiserweight Division

I’m pretty sure nobody would argue the point with me if I made the statement that the WWE have never had a viable Cruiserweight Division. Ever. I’m not even entirely sure you could call what they have a ‘division’. They have quite a few non-heavyweights who they job out to the heavyweights. Occasionally these small-jobbers get to play amongst themselves, and for this reason the WWE gave them their own little belt, even if it’s regarded as rather silly by everyone else in the WWE.

When the current style of Cruiserweight wrestling was popularized in ECW in the 90’s it was a completely different story. ECW brought in the Lucha Libre wrestlers from South of the border and put on incredible displays for the ECW fans, a glorious counter-point to the blood-soaked brawling matches that were ECW’s bread-and-butter. Eric Bischoff saw the potential in these matches and created the WCW Cruiserweight Championship in 1996. Bischoff brought in simply incredible talent like Dean Malenko, Rey Mysterio Jnr, Eddie Guerrero, Chris Jericho, Ultimo Dragon, Sean Waltman and Juventud Guerrera. At the time Bischoff had just debuted the first live wrestling TV show in Monday Nitro and the Cruiserweight Division was integral to building up the brand new audience for WCW. The Cruiserweight matches was fast-paced, dynamic and high-flying, a complete juxtaposition from the older crop of big heavyweights that dominated the main events of WCW at the time. This faster pace not only fit in perfectly with Nitro’s live selling point, but appealed largely to younger wrestling fans.

The WWE toyed with the idea of doing something similar. They crowned a new Light Heavyweight Champion at In Your House 1997 in the incredibly talented TAKA Michinoku…then they kinda forgot about it and did nothing with the title until a year later when they put the belt on the newly arrived Christian. Then, a month later, they put the championship belt on the money-making machine that is…GILLBERG! For those of you lucky enough to not remember Gillberg, he was a WWE piss-take of Goldberg. They got a skinny white guy, dressed him up like old Bill and had him mock Godlberg’s ring entrance by getting lost backstage (ripped off from the glorious Jericho WCW skit where the same thing happened). Y’know all of those crappy, tired joke promos where the heel brings out a midget dressed like their opponent and makes fun of them for ten boring minutes? Well, Gillberg was just a longer version of that. So why wouldn’t you put a prestigious championship round the guy’s waist?

The Light Heavyweight Championship dropped off into house show obscurity before Essa Rios and Lita revived it with and injected some excitement and high-flying action into matches. Dean Malenko had some great runs with the belt, but guess what? I could watch Dean Malenko pick up his dry-cleaning and still call it “a classic” because the guy is a thousand times better than anyone else on the face of the planet.

Then came the WCW Invasion (also known as ‘How To Lose A Shit-Load Of Cash And A Shit-Load Of Fans 2001′) and eventually the WWE unified their Light Heavyweight Title with the Cruiserweight title. Chavo Guerrero is one of the few stand-out Cruiserweight Champions with multiple reigns that helped build his heel character and distinguish him from Eddie’s shadow. Matt Hardy had an entertaining run at a time when he had already surpassed the title and deserved a loftier position on the card. Rey Mysterio’s rise in the WWE was so quick he barely touched the Cruiserweight Division to lend it his star power. And so the title remained at the bottom of the card on TV shows and more often than not being left off Pay Per Views altogether. The problem is not that the Cruiserweight Title was resigned to the bottom of the card, as WCW proved that this could be an excellent place for such matches. The two most important matches of the night are the main event and the opening match. Fast-paced, exciting Cruiserweight matches to kick off a TV show proved invaluable to Nitro and hooked viewers from the opening bell. The problem with the WWE is that they actively restricted their Cruiserweights from having the kind of fast-paced, high-flying, lucha-libre/puroresu inspired matches that kick-started the Cruiserweight resurgence in the first place. The WWE have their Cruiserweights putting on heavyweight style wrestling matches, completely ruining the uniqueness and appeal.

And yet the WWE recognizes that this style of match excites the fans and makes them money. Hell, the Hardy Boyz and Edge & Christian used this fast-paced, high-flying style to tear arenas down up and down the country and form the backbone of every WWE show for something like 2 years. Even to this day Jeff Hardy somehow makes a living off the back of his clumsy-as-fuck Cruiserweight-style impression. London & Kendrick caused a damn storm on Smackdown with their energetic, Cruiserweight style, got over with the fans and enjoyed a long Tag Team Title reign. I think the only reason they didn’t hit as big as they should have done is a complete lack of worthy and similarly paced opponents.

The WWE also have absolutely fuck-all commitment to the Cruiserweight division in terms of angles, exposure and feuds. WCW ran some great programs between Malenko and Jericho, Guerrero and Mysterio, Psicosis and Kidman…the list goes on and on. They ran angles like Eddie’s LWO compromised almost entirely of Cruiserweights, and the Dirty Animals, a faction of Cruiserweights pulling DX styled antics. Good or bad, WCW was giving the Cruiserweights something to do other than job out to the big guys at the other end of the card. With the WWE, the audience is lucky to get one Cruiserweight feud at a time, and this is always involving the championship. If you’re not holding the title or in contention for the title, you do not have a role to play on Smackdown. This is the WWE rule. Now how exactly can you build a division of stars and contenders for the championship, if the audience only ever gets to see them two at a time?

Along with the roster split we have a brand exclusive Cruiserweight Championship. Meaning that Daivari and Super Crazy are just kicking their heels on Raw, hoping the creative team think of something funny for them to do. There seems little point to have any Cruiserweights on Raw, as the WWE has made it perfectly clear there’s nowhere else for them to go. When Hornswoggle won the Cruiserweight Championship I didn’t even bat an eyelid. Why? Because we’ve been told time and time again by the WWE that the Cruiserweight Championship isn’t worth shit. Remember when Batista absolutely killed Cruiserweight Champion Gregory Helms on Smackdown? No? Well I guess you must have blinked because it was a pathetic squash match. Hornswoggle was the first Cruiserweight Champion in a long time that the fans gave a shit about, and that is a disturbing state of affairs.

The Cruiserweight Division as it currently stands consists of Jamie Noble, Jimmy Wang Yang and Shannon Moore. That’s it. Helms is out with a neck injury and the only two other guys in the weight category are Chavo Guerrero and Rey Mysterio, two performers that are clearly above and beyond a bottom-of-the-card title and position. Who’s gonna win the newly vacated Cruiserweight Championship? If the WWE had any sense they would kick-start the Cruiserweight Division, put the belt on Rey Mysterio and use his star power to elevate the title. Present the Cruiserweight Champion as being on the same level as the World Heavyweight Champion. Have Mysterio and Noble main event Smackdown with a title defense and few times. Present the Cruiserweights in an exciting, entertaining and legitimate manner just like the Heavyweights and just like TNA X-Division. They’d bring any Cruiserweights doing nothing on Raw back over to Smackdown and present the Cruiserweight Division as a true star-attraction that Smackdown has exclusive rights to.

But I’m just being silly now. This is nothing more than a hollow pipe-dream. And why?

You’re An Idiot Because – Vince McMahon Creams For Big Men

And just before we go I can bring you some Idiotic Comments from esteemed wrestling mind E. E. Jacobsen.

Please tell me your idiot of the week will mention some what the retarded decision to not deliver on the elimination chase. This had the fans interested in ECW for first time since Paul Heyman wrote the show. Tommy Dreamer could have had his last match in the sun. A big PPV match for the ECW title and effectively pass the ECW torch to CM Punk. It would appeal to the old ECW faithful (all 4 of us left) and the CM Punk audience the WWE is building ECW around now. Instead, some idiot came up with the bright idea to put Big Daddy V in the ECW Title match? Instead of fucking Tommy Dreamer? What sense does that make? Big Daddy V vs. CM Punk has NO BUILD! No heat behind it. I’m so frustrated with wrestling as whole right now I barely even watch it. Then when I think things will get better…. something gets fucked up again.

I no longer care about Save_Us.222, Saviour_Self, No Mercy, the WWE, or anything they have to offer.

Heroes is on at the same time as Raw where I live, Rob. I’d rather give my time to Hayden Pentierre than the crap disguised as something I used to love.

Good god in heaven I love that Hayden Pentierre girl. Course, not as much now she’s turned legal….