Professional wrestlers come in all shapes and sizes. As a way to present themselves just as legitimate as other combat sports, many promotions throughout history have taken to dividing their rosters up into weight divisions. From splitting the roster between over and under a certain weight to places like CMLL in Mexico that has multiple weight classes each with their own championships to compete for, it's a tried and true way to organize a roster. So, how come the WWE, the biggest wrestling company in the world, has never been able to properly pull it off?

At the start of 2022, the modern incarnation of the company's Cruiserweight Championship was dissolved and unified into the NXT North American title, bringing about its end after a very rocky existence since its revival in 2016. With a roster of world-class talent sitting under their limit of 205 pounds, it may feel like a real wonder that the belt has gone away. But, just by looking over quite recent history, it's no surprise that the title went out with a whimper.

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The First Cruiserweight Championship Had Amazing Promise But Petered Out

X-Pac as Light Heavyweight Champion & Cruiserweight Champion

The WWE had first properly started tinkering around with the idea of a firm weight division in the late 1990s, introducing the WWF Light Heavyweight Championship and crowning TAKA Michinoku as the first holder. The title started off life with a tremendous amount of potential, but the company soon lost interest in it. Following the acquisition of WCW in 2001, the Invasion angle featured a war over all the gold. The WCW Cruiserweight Championship held a much higher standing in its home company, leading to the belts embroiled in the conflict. A testament to how the WWF regarded its own Light Heavyweight Championship, the belt quietly retired after a unification match was canceled. Now, they had the newly christened WWF Cruiserweight Championship, and a chance to reboot the division.

The division got just that with the brand split in early 2002, with the Cruiserweight Championship becoming exclusive to SmackDown!. When people look back and praise the in-ring quality of the blue brand during the Ruthless Aggression Era, the cruiserweights were a huge part of that. The roster was absolutely stacked with some of the best cruiserweights ever, from familiar WWE stars like Matt Hardy to the influx of ECW and WCW talents like Chavo Guerrero, Tajiri, and Billy Kidman, to later acquisitions like the legendary Ultimo Dragon and of course, Rey Mysterio.

With some of the company's best in-ring competitors vying over the Cruiserweight Championship, one would think that the Cruiserweight Championship might have become one of the hottest belts going. But, the title, and the division as a whole, went through peaks and troughs in presentation. Over its five years active in the WWE, the title only ever appeared at a WrestleMania twice. Theoretically, the showcase of the company's best, any title is seen as holding some weight would surely make it on the card. This is not an indictment of the talent in the division whatsoever, rather, a very telling story of how the WWE looked down at its cruiserweights. Infamously, the final nail in the championship's coffin was when it fell into the hands of Hornswoggle. Though a great talent in his own right, his reign would fizzle out with the belt being missing in action for months before being declared defunct.

RELATED: The WCW Cruiserweight Craze Can Actually Never Work Again

Again, The Cruiserweight Championship Is Mishandled And Falls To The Wayside

via wwe.com

The revival of the Cruiserweight Championship received a lot of buzz, quickly becoming one of the most exciting things in the company upon its surprise return as the prize for the Cruiserweight Classic tournament. After the summer series was the subject of mass praise, the cruiserweight division officially became a part of the RAW brand with the revamped brand split. The division seemed more or less doomed from the beginning, with an awkward introduction where the newly crowned champion, TJ Perkins, wasn't even present. Despite having three whole hours to fill, RAW would only feature the cruiserweights very sparsely, if at all. But, their time on RAW is really a footnote compared to the division being given its own show, 205 Live.

Once more, 205 Live felt like something that was mishandled from the very start. Where the Cruiserweight Classic had found great success as a wrestling-focused product in front of the smaller crowd in Full Sail University, the cruiserweights were floundering on RAW in front of audiences who had come to see the big stars. So, taping 205 Live after SmackDown! in front of a fatigued arena felt like a death knell. Despite the rough hand they were dealt, the cruiserweight division still found ways to shine. Neville was a shining star, finally with a platform to properly showcase himself. Enzo Amore's time as champion was a fairly noticeable downturn, but the months following his departure were truly great, with the emergence of Buddy Murphy, Mustafa Ali, and Cedric Alexander as key players.

RELATED: 10 Stellar Cruiserweights Who Actually Had Great Gimmicks

The cruiserweight division started to get a little complicated with the belt's transition to NXT. In theory, the champion was now supposed to appear across both NXT and 205 Live, but in practice, it was heavily weighted towards the former. Whilst the title was presented very well in NXT, 205 Live has since undergone an identity crisis, with talent of all types appearing on it, making its very name totally redundant. Now, with the developmental system seemingly being stripped of anything related to Triple H, the championship is no more.

In every incarnation of weight classes in the WWE, from the Light Heavyweight division to the most recent incarnation, it has been a story of massive potential being so sloppily squandered. They literally had some of the best talents in the world, and they couldn't make it work. The failures of the cruiserweight division are just another example of the performers giving it their all, with the powers that be not seeing what they had.