With Mixed Match Challenge season two premiering on Tuesday, WWE’s programming schedule will be undergoing a bit of a shift.
WWE announced today that 205 Live will be airing at 7 p.m. Eastern time on Wednesdays starting with this coming week’s television: “Starting next week, @WWE205Live heads to Wednesday nights at 7pm ET on the award-winning @WWENetwork! #205Live.” The move was indicated on the WWE Network schedule before being officially confirmed by the company.
205 Live will be part of a block on Wednesdays with NXT and the Mae Young Classic.
WWE hasn’t announced if there will be any changes to 205 Live being taped after SmackDown or if the show will be moving back to its live format on Tuesdays when Mixed Match Challenge is over.
There is nothing they can do to get people to watch it. It is the XFL 2001 at this point. The taint is too deep.
Just think about this 25 years ago if you listen to any wrestling radio shows or read the sheets all you would hear about is how wrestling could get rid of all the big guys and feature all the smaller more athletic wrestlers. I mean think how hard Meltzer would of jizzed his pants if he got a WWE show featuring exclusively guys under 205 lbs having great matches 25 years ago. Now no one really cares because there is such an over saturation of small guys doing flips at this point.
The last thing wrestling needs is more little guys. It needs to attract more big guys with larger than life qualities. I want to see another Vader not another TJ Perkins.
Serious question. Would of everyone on here have been super excited for a 205 show by WWE if it came out 20 to 25 years ago? I just feel that little guys doing flips is just so over saturated now and we are completely jaded to them.
Like I said earlier, there was a massive demand for something like this 20 to 25 years ago and that’s why the WCW cruiser weight division was so popular.
At the time, when they were competing with WCW and could potentially land some of the same talent WCW was able to get, sure. It would have worked. The main event was different enough at that time, that a 205 Live would have offered something different.
There are 2 reasons it doesnt work today…
The main event guys can all do very similar, if not better moves. So it doesnt make anything on 205 Live special.
They are very restricted moves wise in WWE. Theres a reason people rant and rave about Junior Heavyweight matches in New Japan or just other lighter weight guys on the indies. Sure, its a more dangerous style, but that is the time we live in. A cruiserweight division just doesnt work in 2018 WWE.
Hell I would go as far as saying almost all wrestling outside of WWE is 205 live at this point. If you watch ROH, Impact, Lucha Underground, MLW all Mexican and Japanese wrestling it’s almost all small guys doing athletic stuff.
Meltzer was saying at Starrcast that all the older wrestlers there were huge and looked like giants compared to all the newer wrestlers there. This sounds like the wet dream of the IWC like 20 years ago, but is it really what they wanted? The entire business being guys under 6 ft doing flips with very few giants or guys who look like NFL linebackers?
But even the bigger guys are doing flips and shit now. Look at a Keith Lee or Punishment Martinez or Hansen, tall guys or fat guys can do some of this shit. Its just a different time where I dont think weight classes fit.
Jericho gets a bigger reaction staring at the crowd after a shoulder tackle then anyone does for flips and burning hammers on the apron or whatever stupid shit they do now.
I’m talking strictly wrestling. Where was anyone talking about anything different? Its pretty clearly by just watching any product that weight classes mean nothing. You can say move sets mean nothing, but the fact is if you ask a majority of wrestling fans about a cruiserweight, what will come to mind is flips and shit.
When you have guys who weigh 250+ doing those exact same moves and the fans see that, they look at 205 Live and think “why the fuck should I watch that?”
The fact that people automatically equate cruiserweights with flips pretty much validates my point on fans putting that glass ceiling on those performers.
I dont know how much you can blame the fans. When you look back at WCW, you had your guys like Jericho, Eddie, Benoit, Malenko who had a good mix of everything and were mostly able to break away from the cruiserweight division. Then look at so many other guys, their bread and butter was the crazy flips. That was what people were given. For every 1 Dean Malenko, there was 3 or 4 Psichosis. With the exception of Mysterio all those guys were stuck in the cruiserweight division.
Even now, for every 1 Drew Gulak, there are 3 or 4 members of the Lucha House Party. Some of these guys dont try to attempt a different style.