My Friday column for the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review talks about the rumors of WWE doing a show focusing on the Lightweight performers. Here’s an excerpt:
With a lot of live weekly programming to fill on cable and the WWE Network around the clock, adding depth and quality should always be a priority.
This is why any talk WWE might be having — as reports have suggested — of a series featuring lightweight division performers is a good thing. However, I’m not a fan of it being featured in a series as the rumor mill continues to say.
A series is a selected window of time to feature it. Add in the details of using the series to see who gets over and performs well to ultimately get signed with WWE, and now we have a spinoff of Tough Enough. Granted, it would be contestants who actually already know how to wrestle, but I’d rather stay away from that.
Bringing in these smaller guys, who WWE doesn’t have, to feature them in this series feels like they would be trying to take me to the professional wrestling zoo: “Hey, look behind the glass over there, that guy doesn’t even weigh as much as Big Show’s lower body.”
It would be the same old song and dance. One or two guys come out of the series to get signed, and they are forever the Mighty Mouse underdog who doesn’t belong but won’t give up. Neville, anyone?
I think the idea to feature these smaller talents who tend to have a different move set and style of match than their bigger colleagues is a good thing to do. It can be a draw for the top-priority WWE Network, but rather than a series or competition, just create it as a new division and new show.
You can film the matches prior to RAW and SmackDown in front of a live crowd. This accomplishes several things. First, it’s a better use of the time prior to the big cable shows than what is done currently — tossing out random matches for WWE Main Event and Superstars, which nobody watches because there’s no purpose with storylines. Second, this will get the crowd on their feet and warmed up to be vocal for the start of RAW or SmackDown filming.
Having said all that, there remains one big issue to doing this, which is an issue I suspect is the reason Vince McMahon hasn’t had a cruiserweight or lightweight title and division in over a decade.
CLICK HERE for the problem with this division and how to move forward.
