The WWE Light Heavyweight division was frustrating. Get this: the company has a strong collection of North American high flyers and a few from Japan. Most of these guys have had world experience and they’re good to go.
Then you have these guys–who are the same age as the International talent—from the U.S and Canada who are on the bleeding edge of high flying as 2000 nears.
Not only that but your company starts your division pretty early. WCW has a small guy division? WWE has one the following year and it’s staffed. The early months of the title were pretty good. It went exactly how a division should go: competitively in nature.
Then the title had to be involved in something or rather everyone had to have something going on. If someone’s a champion, they needed some kind of involvement as well.
Honestly, it was kind of like the European title in that it was definitely around and there were still solid matches held for it but the title was getting the ax as soon as possible.
Eventually, that happened in early 2001 once WCW was purchased and the Cruiserweight title became the prize for lighter wrestlers.
Salvaging the WWE Light Heavyweight Division
The Hardcore divisions in WWE and WCW were easier to salvage than the Light Heavyweight division. All those two really needed were more people, different matches, and for someone to view the belt as their WWE Championship.
Outside of the last thing, this division had the people and sometimes you got different kinds of matches. Every division needs an anchor and the division had Taka Michinoku before he was given something else to do outside of being the WWE Light Heavyweight champion.
Let’s just mark this under “do not salvage” because with WCW being purchased they got a division with stronger branding and more goodwill. If anything, all the company needed to do was keep the division exciting and competitive.
Remember, a division needs its own roster of talent. The 205 Live initiative was close to this as it was basically every cruiserweight on the roster in different matches. It makes the division appear lively. A division can’t run on a roster that is comparable in size to a faction.
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