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Across the Pond; The vacant WWE Cruiserweight Title

Welcome readers to the first ‘Across the Pond‘. Let me start off by thanking ‘Wrestlers Ramblings‘ (namely The Eagle) for this opportunity to share my opinions with all of you. If you will indulge me, I’m going to tell you a little about myself before we get started. I’m a first year college student studying English (so if these columns come off as a little pernickety, forgive me it’s a habit). I’m a long time wrestling fan; it’s not the violence, it’s not athleticism, it’s not even the excitement that I love. It’s the passion. Knowing that these men and women give so much of themselves just to entertain the fans is enough of a reason to make me watch and love this faux sport. A few years ago I wrestled with a small European wrestling organisation. However for reasons outside of my control I had to stop wrestling before I could ever really make anything out of it. With that being said I’m not bitter about stopping and I still love and respect the business.

Now that that’s out of the way I’d like to lay out a mission statement. I intend to offer opinions on various aspects of wrestling today. Be it TNA, WWE or any Indy promotions that catch my attention. I hope to spark some interesting debate among my readers and thus will be giving out an email address for any of you who agree, disagree or just want to banter with me, but don’t like to post comments. If I can inspire my reader’s opinions in any way, shape or form, I will consider this column a success……Now all of the introductions are out of the way let’s get the ball rolling. With WWE’s Royal Rumble coming this Sunday, I know most people are going to want to know about the various picks and opinions surrounding the Rumble match and the overall PPV itself. That however is not what I’m going to talk about. The first thing I want to address is the disgraceful lack of the Cruiserweight Championship in WWE at the moment. Now for a long, long time that Title has been mismanaged, ignored, underrated and well, devalued to the level of the old Hardcore Title before it was dissolved. With Gregory Helms’ record title reign and Jimmy Yang’s convincing chase, I had hoped the title would be dragged back into the spotlight in the WWE and given the proper TV time a group like the Cruiserweights deserve. I like to think back to a few years ago, when Rey Mysterio Jr. was still considered a Cruiserweight. Back then the title was in high demand. It was given the proper TV time and it meant something. I loved it. I watched Smackdown! religiously; the Cruiserweights were so exciting. Even when Funaki was champion the title held enough prestige to keep the world interested. I don’t know exactly why that all stopped, but it did, and I’m heart broken over it. That WWE actually felt it was a good idea to put the belt on Hornswoggle confuses and frustrates me to no end. I’m not going to get into that right now, it makes me sad and nobody wants that right?

Anyway, what I’m going to do is pose a possible solution to the issue of the nearly extinct Cruiserweight Title……Consider the following: what if WWE were to put the Cruiserweight Division into ECW? That way it would get the chance to display the talent in an appropriate forum. Wrestlers like Shannon Moore, Jimmy Yang, Jamie Noble and the eventually debuting Matt Sydal would not only reinvigorate the Cruiserweight Title, but it would also give ECW that one missing factor that made the original different to all the other shows on TV. They could host a weekly ‘Cruiserweight Invitational’ to determine the No. 1 contender for the title. Following that they could have a title match once a week where the winner of the last week’s invitational gets a one-on-one chance to win the gold. Wouldn’t that make ECW so much more exciting? Wouldn’t that make you want to watch the show? Moreover, wouldn’t that make the show more then a glorified ‘Velocity‘? Regardless of how many ‘transitional’ and ’short-term’ champions we would inevitably end up with it would no doubt lead to an overall improvement in the way the ‘little guys’ are handled in WWE (lest we forget Frankie Kazarian)……With that in mind, I would also like to suggest WWE revise what actually constitutes a ‘Cruiserweight‘. As far as I know the cut off point right now is something like 200lbs (correct me if I’m wrong). In my opinion this is a mistake. Think of the likes of the Miz, Kenny Dykstra, Carlito and Santino Marella should be involved. All of these men could be classified as ‘Light Heavyweights’. Just think about the kind of dynamic they could offer the Cruiserweight Division if the weight restrictions were modified to include these ‘Light Heavyweights’. I suppose in short what I’m saying is, WWE should bring back the ‘Light Heavyweight Title‘ and place it in ECW. This would let the ‘cruisers’ play the overmatched baby-faces, while the ‘light heavies’ could either play the bully-heels or the loyal friend to the ‘cruisers’……Well, that about wraps up this splash in the pond. I hope you’ve all enjoyed it, and more importantly, I hope it’s given you all something to think about. I realise this first column may have seemed at times a little choppy, and if so, I’m working on it. I hope to hear from you all soon. Feel free to e-mail me at pondsplash@hotmail.com.