Ranking Every WWE Cruiserweight Champion Since 2016

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.