The Troubled History Of WWE's Light Heavyweight Championship, Explained
In the midst of the Monday Night Wars, WWE introduced the Light Heavyweight Championship, giving its stacked roster an extra title to fight for.
Aimed at the smaller wrestlers, the championship was brought in to try and replicate some of the success WCW had achieved with their own Cruiserweight title, but things didn't quite go to plan for WWE.
The title wasn't the success the promotion had hoped for, and it was scrapped just five years after it was brought to the WWE. There was more to the championship than its disappointing tenure in Vince McMahon's promotion though.
It Was Brought In To Replicate WCW's Cruiserweight Championship
As previously mentioned, WWE brought the championship into the promotion in order to try and replicate the monumental success WCW was having with their cruiserweight division at the time.
While the NWO was the biggest draw for WCW during the Monday Night Wars, the cruiserweight division wasn't far off in terms of the appeal it had with audiences worldwide. Eric Bischoff was ahead of his time, and his decision to bring smaller wrestlers into the promotion, offering fans intense, fast-paced, and most importantly well-wrestled matches really set his guys apart from the competition.
With the likes of Rey Mysterio Jr., Psychosis, Dean Malenko, and Ultimo Dragon all heavily featured, wrestling fans really got a taste for the style, and WWE decided to capitalize on the situation with the Light Heavyweight Championship brought in to give them a similar division for fans to gravitate towards. It didn't work out quite the way they wanted it to though, and the title never reached the success of WCW's cruiserweight championship, with the two being unified not long after McMahon bought his competition.
McMahon even gave Malenko a run with the title once he made the jump from WCW to WWE, likely appreciating the work he'd done with the cruiserweight title.
The Title Originated Outside Of WWE
While the championship was brought into WWE at the tail end of 1997, it was first created way back in 1981 when the promotion gifted it to the Universal Wrestling Association (UWA) through the pair's working relationship back then, with Perro Aguayo being the very first champion.
While it was technically a WWE title, the championship spent the first 16 years of its run being defended outside of the promotion, mostly in UWA in Mexico, but also even making its way to New Japan Pro Wrestling.
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It was while in New Japan, that the title was actually handed back to WWE in late 1997, with Shinjiro Otani the final man to hold the belt outside of Vince McMahon's promotion. Despite it technically always belonging to the WWE and McMahon, the company refused to acknowledge its lineage before it arrived in the company in 1997, with every champion who held the belt before its arrival not receiving any recognition from them.
It's a shame the promotion refuses to recognize some of the title's former champions, with Villano III's seven reigns, and 2040 combined days holding the belt well worthy of some sort of acknowledgment.
Gillberg Had The Longest Reign In WWE
One excellent example of WWE's failure to respect their own title was having Gillberg hold it, and rarely defend it for 445 days, longer than anyone else in the company.
He may have been Duane Gill when he first won the belt, but the now 62-year-old quickly adopted the Gillberg gimmick (a parody of WCW's Goldberg) while holding the title, and he immediately became a laughingstock.
In stark contrast to Goldberg, Gillberg was a major loser and embarked on a huge losing streak to mirror the former's impressive winning record in WCW. That's right, WWE actually had someone holding one of their titles lose a historical amount of times. In fact, he only managed to pick up one victory during his time as Gillberg, but still somehow held onto the title for over a year.
The run absolutely destroyed any credibility the title may have had, with it often treated as an afterthought, and you thought WWE treated their mid-card champions poorly now.
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The title isn't alone though, with WWE treating the cruiserweight championship just as poorly once they had ahold of that title too. They even hard Hornswoggle winning that title, so it's safe to say the promotion has just never quite understood what to do when it comes to showcasing the smaller, more technically gifted wrestlers. They certainly never quite managed to do it as impressively as Bischoff did over at WCW anyway.
