In 2002 the WWE Brand Split afforded more TV time to the Cruiserweights and a short time later Rey Mysterio would make his company debut. As a result the stock of Cruiserweight wrestling in WWE skyrocketed. Matches between Mysterio, Tajiri, Jamie Noble and Matt Hardy were the highlights of programming. In the fact the division had gained so much traction that Mysterio and Hardy main- evented Smackdown in a match over the WWE Cruiserweight Championship This great run of Cruiserweight competition would culminate in a fantastic contest between Mysterio and Chavo Guerrero at No Way Out 2004. Its not only one of the best matches in a stacked year but probably the best WWE Cruiserweight match of all time. So after such progress what did WWE do? Introduce the 55 year old Chavo Classic and give him the title on a fluke win. In his day Chavo Classic was one of the biggest stars in the industry, but this was over 20 years removed and almost inevitably he was portrayed as comic relief. The oldest Guerrero brother would only hold the Championship for a month before being fired for no- showing consecutive house shows. In a different context a man with as much knowledge as Classic could have made it work. Instead his reign ended up being a momentum killer; the Cruiserweight division would never quite recover.
