Ranking Every WWE Cruiserweight Champion Since 2016
The good, the bad, and the Enzo...
In an attempt to replicate the same success WCW's high-fliers had throughout the 1990s, WWE instituted its own Cruiserweight division in 2001. Although it was exciting at first thanks to scintillating stars such as Billy Kidman, Tajiri and Rey Mysterio, the Cruiserweights never truly reached their full potential, and in 2007, the division was disbanded with Hornswoggle as the final champion.
WWE gave it another go in 2016 with the return of the Cruiserweight Classic, which was critically-acclaimed by fans. The tournament's rave reviews led to the division being reinstated on Raw in that fall with 205 Live debuting on WWE Network soon after. WWE sadly dropped the ball with the Cruiserweights from night one (largely thanks to poor presentation) and 205 Live never really took off the way fans and officials hoped it would.
Nevertheless, there have been some quality Cruiserweight champions over the past three years that deserve praise and recognition for the matches, promos and storylines they produced during their time on top. Most of these guys were doing amazing work even when it felt like no one was watching.
Newly-crowned Cruiserweight champion Lio Rush has all the makings of a terrific champ, but where he'll ultimately rank among these 11 title holders remains to be seen.
11. Akira Tozawa
Akira Tozawa has been aligned with a number of Superstars throughout his WWE run, but all of them have sadly since left him, including Titus Worldwide.
The otherwise forgettable stable recruited Tozawa into their ranks in the summer of 2017 and aided him in his pursuit of the Cruiserweight Championship. He first fell short against then-champion Neville at the Great Balls of Fire pay-per-view before knocking off The King of the Cruiserweights in shocking fashion on the go-home episode of Raw before SummerSlam.
To his credit, Tozawa was gradually getting over with the audience at the time and the crowd in attendance that night in Boston popped huge for his title win, partly because they likely weren't expecting it. Either way, Tozawa was a fresh face in the title picture and appeared to be primed for a fun run as champion.
Unfortunately, all it took was six days for him to lose the belt back to Neville on the SummerSlam Kickoff show. After failing to regain the gold on 205 Live two nights later, it became apparent that his 15 minutes of fame were up and that WWE had no plans to push him that prominently ever again.
Sure enough, he's contended for the championship on a few different occasions over the past two years, but he was never able to recapture it before moving to Raw in the 2019 WWE Draft.