The WWE Cruiserweights Have a Monday Night Raw Problem

This week’s episode of Monday Night Raw featured a one-on-one match between Austin Aries and TJ Perkins, a solid rematch as part of an ongoing feud between Aries and champion Neville, and the developing story of Perkins’ switch from babyface to conniving heel. Aries and Perkins are two of the most talented men on the entire WWE roster, and little more than a year ago, neither of them was in the company. Now, they’re two of the biggest stars of the company’s cruiserweight division, the 205-pound-and-under group offered in part as an alternative to WWE’s main roster heavyweights.

WWE’s cruiserweights, in part through their showcase on 205 Live, have proven to be amongst the company’s best workers, presumably catering to a certain type of fan: The diehard base, eager for fewer gimmicks and more wrestling. The cruiserweight division as a whole, especially since the inclusion of Neville and Aries, offers some of the most interesting performances in WWE, and provides a platform for atypical WWE wrestlers to shine on a weekly basis.

But even for fans to whom the division is presumably targeted, it’s been a surprisingly tough sell. Besides some of the sillier segments and storylines—”too much talking, not enough action,” as Corey Graves described 205 Live on a recent episode of “Bring it to the Table”—and filming in front of a half-empty arena of tired Smackdown fans, the show has one major problem: Namely, WWE’s flagship television show, Monday Night Raw.

The addition of the cruiserweights to Raw was, at first, an exciting prospect. During the initial brand split, the anticipation of seeing in-ring work similar to the excellent Cruiserweight Classic tournament seemed like just the shot in the arm WWE needed, and the promise of 205 Live was a strong indicator that WWE wanted to actually court a fanbase that often felt ignored. Not every segment on every WWE show needs to be catered to the diehard fan, but every fan wants something that feels like it’s theirs. You don’t have to root for Roman Reigns if there’s something else on the card that’s catered to you.

This is exactly the way WCW worked in the mid-to-late 1990s. For whatever its faults in the company’s latter years, Monday Nitro was by far a more complete show than Raw for a good portion of the so-called “Monday Night Wars,” as reflected in the ratings for 84 straight weeks. So many people tuned in to see the nWo, and Hulk Hogan’s will-they-won’t-they feud with Sting. Others couldn’t care less. For the latter group, there was Chris Jericho, Dean Malenko, Eddie Guerrero, Rey Mysterio Jr., Juventud Guerrera, and any number of young, hungry talents vying for the Cruiserweight, United States or Television championships. There was Diamond Dallas Page, there was Booker T. While WWE drew from an American culture still in a regrettable “shock jock” mindset, WCW briefly survived on a mixture of great wrestling and solid, simple storytelling. The cruiserweights especially benefited from this. They were integrated into the show and treated like athletes, sometimes even competing with the heavyweights: A prolonged, on-again, off-again feud with Kevin Nash that started with Nash lawn-darting Mysterio into the side of a trailer ended with the “giant killer” Mysterio pinning the big man clean in 1999.

It’s this integration that’s missing from WWE’s current cruiserweight division. In an effort to increase brand awareness, the company carves out a section of time for a brief cruiserweight showcase, complete with purple ropes, purple lighting, purple LED screens—all to bring attention to 205 Live. The result is a sort of opposite and unintended effect, a problem with almost circular logic: If the cruiserweight matches on Raw just feel like commercials for 205 Live, then why should viewers care about the matches on Raw? And if viewers don’t care about the matches on Raw, why should they tune in to 205 Live?

The main event for this week’s 205 Live was another strong match, between Noam Dar and Rich Swann. The two were given about 15 minutes, and managed to overcome a silly story outside the ring to tell a solid story in the ring, one that had even the tired post-Smackdown crowd engaged in what they were seeing. Plenty of fans at home will tune into 205 Live every week, and won’t give up, because they love the performances and want to support the performers. But when will WWE give us a reason to care about them?