On December 2, Journalists Dave Meltzer and Bryan Alvarez spoke on rumors concerning the cruiserweight division in the day’s episode of Wrestling Observer Radio. The rumor being that WWE may have plans to do away with the Cruiserweight title.
Meltzer noted that he had heard of discussions of the sort as current champion Roderick Strong is set to face off against Joe Gacy, who isn’t 205 lbs., at WarGames after Malcolm Bivens agreed to waive the weight limit for the title. Joe Gacy has stated his intention to make the title “all-inclusive” upon its capture in the lead-up to their match on Sunday.
Meltzer stated in his discussion, “It feels like they’re going to change the 205 Live…I’ve heard they want to ditch the cruiserweight title. The all-inclusive championship. Is that the deal?
In response to the question, Alvarez said it could be renamed instead to the Openweight title. He also noted that it would give the NXT brand three male-exclusive single titles, with the other two being the NXT Championship and the North American Championship. In response, Meltzer noted the change in management of the former black and gold brand. “The old people wanted to make the title legit. So they told everyone in that division to be 205 and under, or they won’t be included. Do you think these guys are going to do weigh-ins? They stopped doing weigh-ins a long time ago. The whole idea of Joe Gacy challenging for the Cruiserweight title and Malcolm Bivens waiving the weight limit…but yeah, that’s from what I understand. The whole 205 Live is not how Vince (McMahon) does things. We’ll see what happens, but they’ve talked about that. I know they’ve talked about changing the whole 205 Live with the Cruiserweight title thing. I don’t know if they’re going to do it in this situation here. It feels like they are because Gacy is getting all kinds of TV time.” (H/T wrestlingnews.com)
Before the cuts started, there were reportedly huge plans for the 205 Live division. However, a wrench was thrown in when several wrestlers were let go last year. Roderick Strong was supposed to be an important factor in said plans, but he has not done much with the title since winning the title from Kushida two months ago.
