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I remember when MATT HARDY spent weeks losing weight to make the cut for the Cruiserweight division 😂.  When he won the title he held it and defended it well at Wrestlemania and even a main event on Smackdown. He made the title look really important, was definitely a good time for the Cruiserweights and it was the only secondary title on Smackdown at the time

Brian Zane's explanation of why the Cruiserweights in WCW opened the PPVs can be translated to the main event too--which TNA did: They were young and exciting and the crowd was always on their feet. The X Division in TNA went two steps further and had guys like Samoa Joe against Daniels and AJ, and they were THE main event.

It always annoys me when people say WCW only beat WWF ratings because they paid a fortune for Nash and Hall etc.
The smaller guys on Nitro put on matches we'd not seen before. Whilst WWF were still giving us Savio Vega v Tatanka.

George the Animal Steele once remarked when asked why he never went after the belt, "Anyone can win the bely, you just have to look good. My job was to make the other guy look good."

I have always loved that quote because he was saying there is no such thing as a jobber, because making someone look good is more important than the belt.

Stevie night heat as the Cruiserweight champion.

As a kid, that was my favorite title.  The stories and wrestlers around it always put amazing matches on.

Look what they did to Hector Guerrero. In an alternate universe, he could have been a very good cruiserweight/junior heavyweight/ light heavyweight champion. In this universe, the WWF made him the Gobblity Gooker and didn't even use him in wrestling matches.

Im 204 lbs right now, get me in that ring

To Vince's eyes, cruiserweight/light heavyweight wrestlers were too 'common', in that anyone could be a cruiserweight wrestler. That's why a lot of the time they were portrayed as 'young', 'rookies', and early into their careers. Which is understandable looking at the carnival origins - you want them to be spectacles that people come to watch.
And in that vein, WWE/F never figured out how to make cruiserweights more than that. Rey Mysterio was an enigma, as he could have been a 'veteran cruiserweight', and could have led the division, but Vince and co thought it was a downgrade.
And ironically, most of the 'young guys' were either to heavy or couldn't work the style. So they really had issues bringing in talent to fill the division.
For a while, WCW had the practice of taking their smaller tag teams and using them in their lightweight division - Ricky Morton as a big example. And that worked fine when they didn't need the tag team for storylines.
What I always thought would have been interesting would have been seeing a Heavyweight, like Goldberg, get beat by a cruiserweight, like Shane Helms. I always would have liked to see Goldberg go for the spear, and instead get hit with a Shining Wizard, and get pinned. That would have been great. And then Goldberg goes on a rampage to get to Helms, and demands a rematch, only to lose again a different way. Give a little credibility to the cruiserweights.

I think a yearly CWC would be so great now with the pool of talent that WWE can potentially contract between NXT, Evolve, TNA and AAA.

I always assumed WWF/WWE never gave a push to the Lightheavyweight division because Vince didn't like the fact that they don't look like jacked superheroes from 90s comics. That's what he wanted the face of his company to look like (aside from during his steroid trial era).

205 Live was actually pretty good, but few watched it. And then they had issues where ocne someone got up to the top of the division, they would quit or have a scandal or for some other reason they would get the title, lose it, and then just be entirely gone from the show. Meanwhile everyone they'd climbed over were still there but had now been lessened.

Been watching this stuff for years and just learned the actual definition of cruiserweight. Thank you for the education!

Also, speaking of massive at 225, I remember how ludicrous it was for Buddy Murphy to be 205 Live and how jacked he was/is.

I was a fan of light heavy weight title too

I absolutely loved the x division of the TNA Glory days. More of that please. When I knew it was going to be an x division match, I knew I was going to see something awesome

At least Gregory helms made it prestigious

the ufc model of having separate but equal divisions is a good thing. so you can simultaneously have like 5 different faces of the company at once

Lets remember that Michael Hayes was head of creative on Smackdown when they ditched the belt.

2:01 Peanut Shell got a great point