BY MICHAEL GOODPASTER
“Worst Case Scenario” is a new take on the concept of “fantasy booking”. For years professional wrestling fans would spend endless hours of thinking up the coolest things that could happen. Why waste the energy? This only leads to high expectations. “Worst Case Scenario” flips that. Instead of looking through rose colored glasses, let’s take a bi-weekly look at the worst possible scenarios in professional wrestling. I’m not going to be malicious or anything too mean, but I will not refrain from letting my brain come up with the worst possible shit I can. Sadly, it seems the writers and producers of mainstream TV wrestling and the mainstream iPPV level indies are doing the same thing but charging us for it. And now…
“Return of the Cruiserweight Title”
In the mid to late 90’s, the Cruiserweight Title was one of the best reasons to watch WCW programming. They signed up all of these bad ass luchadores, Japanese wrestlers, and smaller indie guys and let them go at it. They fought at high speeds and brought a whole new side of wrestling to the American audience. It rocked. Meanwhile the WWF was playing catch-up. They started the “Lightweight Title” and tried their own version of it. They did bring in some solid people like Sasuke, Taka, Scottie Taylor, Brian Christopher, and others. They pushed it for a while, but it just never caught on.
Then WWE would eventually own WCW. They took their property and ran with it for a while before dismantling it. One of the things that came over was the Cruiserweight Title. It would last awhile. The likes of Rey Rey, Chavo, and others would have nice runs with it. The problem is that it was never a big focus. It would eventually fade away. The last WWE Cruiserweight champion I can remember is Hornswoggle.
So today let’s talk about the WWE bringing it back. Off the bat everyone would get excited. With all of the smaller talent the company has this could be a great thing. Imagine the kind of tournament they could have. This could even be where an El Generico, Richie Steamboat, and others could debut for.
The action would rock for a while, no doubt. But this wouldn’t last. Eventually the stand out cruiserweight would be bumped up to the weak mid-card. The talent gap would get wider and the focus would fade. Eventually the title wouldn’t be defended on television for a while and eventually we’d all have trouble remembering who the champion was. This is all much like the WWE Divas division. Someone would get the “witty idea” to use the title as a joke again. Before we know it Hornswoggle would be champion again. If you thought CM Punk’s reign was long, Hornswoggle will run a train on the division. Imagine Hornswoggle pinning El Generico after a three minute match Youtube match as a pre-show to some random PPV.
Oh! And lots of hurricanranas. LOTS! Can’t do a “little guy match” without ‘em!
|
