The WWE Cruiserweight Championship is a professional wrestling title, challenged by cruiserweights under 220 lb (100 kg). It was formerly the World Championship Wrestling Cruiserweight Championship but is now a World Wrestling Entertainment title exclusive to the SmackDown! brand. The Cruiserweight Championship is currently held by Gregory Helms.

History

Prior to its usage in WWE, the Cruiserweight Championship was a popular mainstay in World Championship Wrestling (WCW). Created to replace the WCW Light Heavyweight Championship, the WCW Cruiserweight Championship was a highlight of many WCW shows, often serving as fast-paced opening bouts on WCW Monday Nitro and pay-per-view events to get the crowd warmed up.

The WCW Light Heavyweight Championship is recognized by WWE in the lineage of the Cruiserweight Championship. Debuting in 1991, the first champion was Brian Pillman. However, due to a champion's injury, the title was vacated and quickly dropped in 1992. The first WCW World Cruiserweight champion was Shinjiro Ohtani who, in 1996, beat Chris Benoit in the finals of an untelevised (and mostly fictional) tournament. The match took place in Japan on a New Japan Pro Wrestling show. The quality of matches and competitors for the belt made it a prestigious title to hold.

Many current and recent WWE wrestlers held the title in WCW, including Chris Jericho, Rey Mysterio and Eddie Guerrero. During WCW's decline, the belt lost much of its image due to poor booking and the title reigns of Madusa and non-wrestler Oklahoma.

When Canadian wrestler Lance Storm held the Cruiserweight Championship, he renamed it the 100 Kilograms and Under Championship, which he later gave to Elix Skipper.

Shane Helms was the last Cruiserweight champion before the company was bought out by the World Wrestling Federation (WWF) in March 2001.

The WWF used its equivalent belt, the WWF Light Heavyweight Championship, starting in 1997. In 2001, during the Invasion angle, X-Pac held both titles at once, but contrary to some reports did not unify them. Both belts were seen as separate and defended as such. While holding both belts, X-Pac lost and later regained the Light Heavyweight Championship in matches against Tajiri. After losing the Cruiserweight Championship to Billy Kidman, he was injured and taken off television. During his absence, the WCW Cruiserweight Championship became known as the WWF Cruiserweight Championship (and later, the WWE Cruiserweight Championship). X-Pac returned to television without the Light Heavyweight Championship and it was assumed to have been retired or absorbed into the Cruiserweight Championship. The Cruiserweight Championship was the only title to be recognized as a WWE championship while having another promotion's logo (WCW) visibly on it. The belt was later replaced with a new design in the middle of 2002.

In 2004, the championship was refered to as the WWE Crusierweight Championship of the World.

Currently, WWE hardly uses the Cruiserweights on SmackDown!, and now with the cancellation of Velocity, many of them go several weeks without an appearence on television. The Cruiserweight Championship has also lost prestige due to the reigns of Jacqueline and Chavo Classic and the long time delay of defenses and appearances. WWE has also asked its cruiserweights to not use many high-risk maneuvers, making the matches more like heavyweight matches.

Statistics

Trivia

• The only wrestlers to hold the Cruiserweight Championship in both its WCW and WWE incarnations are Tajiri, Billy Kidman, Gregory Helms, Rey Mysterio, Juventud, and Chavo Guerrero. Of the wrestlers on that list, only Tajiri never held the belt in WCW as his sole WCW Cruiserweight Title win came during the Invasion angle.
• Chris Jericho, Rey Mysterio and Eddie Guerrero are the only former Cruiserweight Champions to have won a world heavyweight championship in WWE. Guerrero won the WWE Championship, Mysterio won the World Heavyweight Championship, And Jericho won both the WWE Championship and the WCW World Heavyweight Championship.
• In each of his three reigns, Gregory Helms held the belt under a different persona, firstly as "Sugar" Shane Helms, then as The Hurricane, and finally as Gregory Helms.
• Sean Waltman (aka X-Pac or Syxx) is the only person to have held the Cruiserweight Championship, the TNA X Division Championship and the WWF Light Heavyweight Championship. Kid Kash has held both the WWE Cruiserweight Championship and TNA X Division Championship while Dean Malenko has held both the WCW Cruiserweight Championship and the WWF Light Heavyweight Championship.
• Three women have held the Cruiserweight Championship. Madusa and Daffney won the WCW incarnation of the title while Jacqueline won the WWE incarnation.
• Two African Americans have held the Cruiserweight Championship. Elix Skipper held the WCW incarnation of the belt while Jacqueline held the WWE incarnation.

Current champion

The current champion is Gregory Helms, who is in his third reign. He pinned Funaki in a Six-way Open Invitational Texas Tornado match at Royal Rumble 2006, also involving Jamie Noble, Nunzio, Paul London, and the then-defending champion, Kid Kash.

On July 11 2006, Helms became the longest reigning cruiserweight champion in history, surpassing Tajiri's reign of 162 days. This includes WCW Light Heavyweight, as well as WCW and WWE Cruiserweight title reigns.

See also

• List of WWE Cruiserweight Champions
• List of WWE Cruiserweight Championship reigns by length

External links

• WCW/WWE Cruiserweight Title History

World Championship Wrestling championships | World Wrestling Entertainment championships | Cruiserweight wrestling championships

WWE Campeonato Peso Crucero | WWE・クルーザー級王座 | WWE Cruiserweight Championship | WWE Cruiserweight Championship