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.HHH discusses 205 Live...and more - 411 Mania.com 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.

 Reigns 

 Combined reigns 
RankWrestlerNo. ofreignsCombineddaysCombined daysrec. by WWE1Jordan Devlin  1  439  4382El Hijo del Fantasma/Santos Escobar  1  321  3133Neville  2  232  2314Buddy Murphy  1 1835Cedric Alexander  1  181  1806Kushida  1  161  1607Enzo Amore  2  108  107Drew Gulak  1 1089Roderick Strong  1 10510Tony Nese  1 7711Lio Rush  1 6312Rich Swann  1  61  6013T. J. Perkins 1  46  4514Angel Garza  1  45  4415The Brian Kendrick  1 3016Kalisto  1  13  1217Akira Tozawa  1  6  518Carmelo Hayes  1 <1

 Related pages 
 WWE Cruiserweight Championship (1991–2007)

 Footnotes 


 References 

 Other websites 
 Official WWE Cruiserweight Title History

Category:World Wrestling Entertainment championships