9 Mistakes WWE Made With The Debut Of The Cruiserweight Division

9. Not Having TJ Perkins On The First Show

It would eventually transpire (within storylines at least) that the entire purpose of the Cruiserweight Classic was to crown the first-ever (but kind of not really) WWE Cruiserweight Champion. That honour was of course reserved for TJ Perkins, who defeated both Kota Ibushi and Gran Metalik to claim the company’s newest title.

Correct me if I’m wrong here, but surely as champion, that means he’s pretty much the focal point, the centrepiece, the face of the division, right? In which case, you’d expect him to feature on the show that paraded the Cruiserweights in front of the mass audience for the very first time on Raw.

As it happens though, TJ Perkins was nowhere to be seen.

I’m not saying that he needed to be competing in a match necessarily, but he should still have featured in some way, shape or form, even if it was just in some backstage interview or promo segment.

Ultimately, his lack of an appearance made Perkins and the championship seem like less of a big deal, and in hindsight probably wasn’t the best way to kick things off for the division.