Fansided

Daniel Bryan knows there’s a problem with the WWE cruiserweights

By Matt Seese

PHILADELPHIA, PA - SEPTEMBER 12: WWE wrestler Daniel Bryan reacts after throwing out the first pitch prior to the game between the Pittsburgh Pirates and Philadelphia Phillies at Citizens Bank Park on September 12, 2016 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. (Photo by Mitchell Leff/Getty Images)
PHILADELPHIA, PA - SEPTEMBER 12: WWE wrestler Daniel Bryan reacts after throwing out the first pitch prior to the game between the Pittsburgh Pirates and Philadelphia Phillies at Citizens Bank Park on September 12, 2016 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. (Photo by Mitchell Leff/Getty Images) /
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It comes as no surprise to many now, but WWE’s cruiserweight division is failing miserably, and Daniel Bryan thinks he may know why.

Following the massive success that was the Cruiserweight Classic last summer, many fans thought WWE had something special with this division. The matches were incredible, but most importantly, each wrestler got time to tell their backstory, creating an emotional connect with the fans. However, fast forward one year later and the cruiserweights are an afterthought on every RAW and a kickoff show staple for most every pay-per-view. Aside from Neville and Akira Tozawa, to an extent, every cruiserweight in the division has not had their chances to tell their story and establish their characters.

What’s the issue to the core, though? SmackDown Live‘s general manager and former multi-time world champion Daniel Bryan thinks he may know.

“I think one of the things that they have a hard time with with 205 Live and the cruiserweights is they do some incredible stuff, but do you know who else is doing incredible stuff? AJ Styles doing springboard 450 splashes, right?” he told Edge and Christian on their podcast.

So to somebody who really knows, okay, the degree of difficulty, they may see Mustafa Ali do this incredible, I don’t even know what you call it, inverted 450 splash or something, I don’t know, [but] it’s incredible. But to the casual fan, is that any more impressive than AJ Styles doing a springboard 450 splash? And he’s a main event guy who gets promo time and all this kind of stuff.” (h/t WrestlingINC for the transcription)

Bryan really harps on the significance of standing out but doesn’t think just ring work alone can do it for cruiserweights in this era and he’s absolutely right. Let’s take Neville, for example. Neville is unarguably the single biggest name in the cruiserweight division, but WWE took him and his and made this dominant King of the Cruiserweights character who, as dominant as he may be, always feels that he has something to prove.

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Now let’s take a look at Mustafa Ali, someone Daniel Bryan referenced. With main event mainstays like AJ Styles and Kevin Owens flying around the ring on SmackDown Live, Ali’s ability to truly get over lies with his story, but, like everything else in this division, the stories don’t get their chances to shine through which only hurts the talent.

Should WWE give talents like Ali, Cedric Alexander, and even the division’s best in-ring talent in Gran Metalik some sort of semblance of a story to build a push with, this division would be able to take itself off life support. If WWE took enough time to build up serious contenders out of these men as they did 205 Live midcard acts like Drew Gulak, odds are, this division would be in much better shape.

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