The WWE has never really taken the light heavyweight division seriously. They brought it in in the latter half of the nineties to try and combat the success WCW was having with Nitro each week. One of the early stars of the division was Taka Michinoku, who was the focal point of the title for quite some time. Then the WWE became bored with the championship and the credibility of Taka soon went too. Instead of using Taka and his partner/former foe Funaki as a serious team to challenge for the tag titles and be a proud representative of Japanese-style wrestling, they had them come out and be dubbed from backstage with American voices. Funaki would only ever be given the word 'Indeed,' which was a funny sidekick trait. Now this is an idea would have been fine in a sketch show, and even then maybe if it was a one off, but the WWE like to take ideas and milk 'em dry. They were being dubbed like an old Karate movie simply because of their ethnic background. Taka later left the WWE and returned to wrestle in Japan while Funaki eventually became Kung Funaki, which was another stereotyped gimmick.