Exposing The Myth: Vince McMahon Buried WCW Talent

5. Embracing The Cruiserweights

Booker T Vince Mcmahon
WWE.com

While the nWo so often gets so much of the praise when it comes to WCW kicking the WWF's ass for so long during the Monday Night Wars, one other piece of arsenal Ted Turner's company had at its disposal was its cruiserweight division.

Despite WWE having the reputation of refusing to truly get behind anything not created by the minds of Vince McMahon and his inner circle, that claim cannot be made about the cruiserweights.

The then-WWF famously jumped on the bandwagon and launched their own light heavyweight division in 1997, but that division, despite having some fantastic in-ring performers, never got anywhere close to being as entertaining and impressive as its WCW counterpart.

When McMahon purchased WCW in 2001, it didn't take long for the company to decide to power ahead with WCW's Cruiserweight Championship in place of the WWF Light Heavyweight Champion - with the two titles being merged, and the Cruiserweight Championship becoming the piece of gold for which the company's 225 lbs and under talents competed for up until 2007.

Given Vince's mindset of bigger being better, and with the Cruiserweight Championship being one of the most beloved elements of WCW, it would have been no surprise for the cruiserweights to have become an immediate non-starter during the '01 buyout.

Instead, that division was showcased and made to feel like a genuine big deal for those first few years after the WCW purchase. The less said about the Cruiserweight Championship's demise in 2007, though, the better.

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