WWE Cruiserweight Championship

The **WWE Cruiserweight Championship**, later known as the **NXT Cruiserweight Championship** was a wrestling title owned by WWE. Only wrestlers under  could compete for it. The first champion was T.J. Perkins. On January 4, 2022, at New Year's Evil, the title was made into one with the NXT North American Championship and retired. Carmelo Hayes was the last champion.

The title did not continue the history of WWE's old Cruiserweight Championship.

## History

In 2016, WWE created the Cruiserweight Classic, a 32-man tournament for cruiserweights. When T.J. Perkins beat Gran Metalik in the final, Triple H gave him the new WWE Cruiserweight Championship for the new cruiserweight division on the Raw brand.

After the show _205 Live_ was created, the Cruiserweight Championship also could be defended in this program. When WWE fired the champion at the time, Enzo Amore in January 2018, there was an announcement that there would be a general manager on _205 Live_ who would decide what would happen to the championship. Drake Maverick was chosen to be the general manager and he decided that there would be a 16-man tournament to decide a new WWE Cruiserweight Champion and that the final would happen at WrestleMania 34. In the final, Cedric Alexander beat Ali to win the title. After WrestleMania 34, _205 Live_ separated from _Raw_ so the title was only defended on that show.

On October 3, 2019, the title was renamed to "NXT Cruiserweight Championship", became part of the NXT brand, and started being defended on the _NXT_ TV show. On October 18, Drake Maverick announced that NXT's cruiserweight wrestlers could also wrestle on _205 Live_. After Jordan Devlin won the title at Worlds Collide on January 25, 2020, the title could also be competed fot on the NXT UK brand.

At NXT WarGames on December 5, 2021, Joe Gacy, who weighed 245 lbs, became the only man above the weight limit to challenge for the championship. Reigning NXT Cruiserweight Champion Roderick Strong allowed Gacy to challenge for the title at WarGames. Gacy said that if he won the title, he would make it an all-inclusive championship. At the event, Strong won and remained champion.

At the special New Year's Evil episode of _NXT 2.0_ on January 4, 2022, North American Champion Carmelo Hayes defeated Cruiserweight Champion Roderick Strong to make the titles into one. Hayes became the last champion and went on as North American Champion. The Cruiserweight title was then retired. The final episode of _205 Live_ aired on February 11, 2022, and it was replaced by _NXT Level Up_ the following week on February 18.

## Combined reigns

|Rank|Wrestler|data-sort-type="number"|No. of reigns|data-sort-type="number"|Combined days|data-sort-type="number"|Combined days rec. by WWE|
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
|Jordan Devlin|1|439|438|||||
|El Hijo del Fantasma/Santos Escobar|1|321|313|||||
|Neville|2|232|231|||||
|Buddy Murphy|1|183||||||
|Cedric Alexander|1|181|180|||||
|Kushida|1|161|160|||||
|Enzo Amore|2|108|107|||||
|Drew Gulak|1|108||||||
|Roderick Strong|1|105||||||
|Tony Nese|1|77||||||
|Lio Rush|1|63||||||
|Rich Swann|1|61|60|||||
|T. J. Perkins|1|46|45|||||
|Angel Garza|1|45|44|||||
|The Brian Kendrick|1|30||||||
|Kalisto|1|13|12|||||
|Akira Tozawa|1|6|5|||||
|Carmelo Hayes|1|<1||||||

## Related pages

- WWE Cruiserweight Championship (1991–2007)

## Other websites

- Official WWE Cruiserweight Title History

## Infobox (pro wrestling championship)

- **championshipname**: WWE Cruiserweight Championship
- **image**: Neville Cruiserweight championship 2017.jpg
- **caption**: Record-tying two-time champion Pac (wrestler), Neville with the first championship design (2016–2027)
- **promotion**: WWE
- **brand**: WWE Raw, Raw
(2016–2018)
205 Live
(2018–2022)
WWE NXT, NXT
(2019–2022)
NXT UK
(2020–2022)
- **created**: September 14, 2016
- **retired**: January 4, 2022
(made into one with the NXT North American Championship)
- **mostreigns**: 2 reigns:
*Pac (wrestler), Neville
*Enzo Amore
- **firstchamp**: T. J. Perkins
- **finalchamp**: Carmelo Hayes
- **longestreign**: Jordan Devlin
(439 days)
- **shortestreign**: Carmelo Hayes
(<1 minute)
- **oldest**: Roderick Strong
()
- **youngest**: Lio Rush
()
- **heaviest**: :
*Carmelo Hayes
*Buddy Murphy
- **lightest**: Akira Tozawa
()
- **pastnames**: * WWE Cruiserweight Championship
(2016–2019)
* NXT Cruiserweight Championship
(2019–2022)