T.J. Perkins Vs. Brian Kendrick At WWE Clash Of Champions 2016

The Cruiserweight Championship is on the line!

Perkins Kendrick COC
WWE.com

T.J. Perkins may have just been crowned the inaugural WWE Cruiserweight Champion last Wednesday, but he'll be making his very first title defense at Clash of Champions when he takes on Brian Kendrick.

The cruiserweight division made its official Raw debut on Monday. General Manager Mick Foley announced a fatal four-way match between Kendrick, Cedric Alexander, Rich Swann, and Gran Metalik, the winner of which would get the first crack at Perkins. After an exciting encounter filled with finisher attempts and broken covers, Kendrick made Alexander submit to the Captain's Hook.

Perkins won the first-ever Cruiserweight Classic last week, a 32-man single-elimination tournament designed to show off the best 205-pound-and-under talent from around the world. Just before the star's tournament final against Metalik, CWC creator Triple H unveiled the brand-new Cruiserweight Championship and announced that the winner would claim the title. Perkins was victorious with a reverse Figure Four Leglock.

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Kendrick was also involved in the tournament, marking his return to WWE action after being released by the company in 2009 (some NXT appearances notwithstanding). He made it to the quarterfinals before suffering an emotional loss to "Golden Star" Kota Ibushi.

Clash of Champions airs live on the WWE Network this Sunday at 8:00 PM ET.

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Scott Fried is a Slammy Award-winning* writer living and working in New York City. He has been following/writing about professional wrestling for many years and is a graduate of Lance Storm's Storm Wrestling Academy. Follow him on Twitter at https://twitter.com/scottfried. *Best Crowd of the Year, 2013