Brock Lesnar vs Neville: Booking The Rise of the Cruiserweights

Wildcat66

Mastermind of ATV
So this is an idea I've been toying around a little bit for the past few days and I figured i'd share with you guys.

Many of us have stated the short-comings of WWE's cruiserweight division in the past, one of the main issues spotlighted being how WWE seemingly treats them like their on basically another planet.

So what's the solution here? Well, you could simply let them start fighting some of the wrestlers that are not in the division and see how it works out; but I want to go a little bit deeper here. If WWE wishes to one day merge the cruiserweights with the rest of the RAW roster, one way to sell it as legitimate would be to have Neville challenge Brock Lesnar for the Universal Title.

The story would be this; Neville having defeated everyone in his path gets bored of being the star of the division and begins to go after some of RAW's superstars like Ambrose or Enzo, maybe Rollins if you want to. As this goes on, Neville begins to demand for a world title shot against Brock; this is rejected at first because Neville needs to earn it. To do so, he'll have to get through the one man that wants it more than he does, Roman Reigns.

The two duke it out the next week and should the feud between them continue past GBOF, Braun Strowman comes out to distract him; giving Neville an opening and upsetting the Big Dog, officially making him the no. contender for the Universal title.

Brock Lesnar would laugh the challenge off, but as the weeks pass; it becomes clear that Neville is the real deal. Basically, do what WWE is doing with Samoa Joe in making him a credible threat to Brock and your basically teflon from there; maybe have Brock be locked the Rings of Saturn if your really invested in it.

Of course, in the end Neville would come up short; squash or not, but it would lead to the cruiserweights starting to mingle with some of RAW's superstars if not a little more than they did beforehand.

Now again, it's just an idea that in all likelihood would have no chance of happening in real life; but giving the idea of this match and the way I structured it out, would any of you be interested in seeing it happen?
 
No. That is all.

Fact of the matter is this... nobody cares about the cruiserweights. Period. Not saying they aren't great. Not saying they aren't entertaining. Nobody cares about them facing each other. We really wouldn't care to see them facing your superstars on Raw or Smackdown. There is zero part of me that wants to see Noam Dar/Bray Wyatt. Or Cedric Alexander/Roman Reigns. Or Gentleman Jack/Braun. No way. No how.

I couldn't tell you where to begin fixing the cruiserweight issue but I think some of it lies within them having their own show. Which in a sense... needed to happen. But you've relegated this giant group of talents to "this group over here with the purple ropes." Basically saying they're all the same. So people see these guys as all the same and expendable. Which I think is what's making it near impossible for them to form their own identities and make us care about them and get the fans invested. Lumping them all into the same group and throwing them all at us at one time is the problem. And this is for a whole different argument, but they'd be better off sending all these guys down to NXT, adding an hour to NXT each week (this is not me saying NXT should be longer) as a rebranding of sorts, and developing these guys from the ground up. That would just be a better solution as a quick 5 minute thought than 205 Live or mixing these guys in with the main roster.
 
No. That is all.

Fact of the matter is this... nobody cares about the cruiserweights. Period. Not saying they aren't great. Not saying they aren't entertaining. Nobody cares about them facing each other. We really wouldn't care to see them facing your superstars on Raw or Smackdown. There is zero part of me that wants to see Noam Dar/Bray Wyatt. Or Cedric Alexander/Roman Reigns. Or Gentleman Jack/Braun. No way. No how.

I couldn't tell you where to begin fixing the cruiserweight issue but I think some of it lies within them having their own show. Which in a sense... needed to happen. But you've relegated this giant group of talents to "this group over here with the purple ropes." Basically saying they're all the same. So people see these guys as all the same and expendable. Which I think is what's making it near impossible for them to form their own identities and make us care about them and get the fans invested. Lumping them all into the same group and throwing them all at us at one time is the problem. And this is for a whole different argument, but they'd be better off sending all these guys down to NXT, adding an hour to NXT each week (this is not me saying NXT should be longer) as a rebranding of sorts, and developing these guys from the ground up. That would just be a better solution as a quick 5 minute thought than 205 Live or mixing these guys in with the main roster.

One thing is certain; if all else fails, we could always resort to using hashtags such as #GiveCruiserweightsAChance

It worked for the women, it could work for the cruiserweights.
 
I wouldn't mind it. It's not like we're having to pay 60 bucks for PPV's anymore and, considering there's about 20 of them a year, there's more room for experimentation nowadays than there ever was in the past. There's a few problems with the scenario though. Firstly, WWE has painted themselves into a corner by branding the smaller wrestlers as cruiserweights; for better or worse, when you lump a certain type of combat athlete into a specific category based on their size, there's a perception among the fans that those smaller athletes (even if they're not much smaller than the other athletes) can't compete with the larger athletes. Otherwise, what would be the point of splitting divisions based on size in the first place? This leads to the whole problem that WCW had in that, even if you put the cruiserweights against the bigger wrestlers, they can't win because that would perceivably diminish the status of the larger wrestler who, for all intents and purposes, just lost to a sideshow. The problem than becomes two-fold because, in this situation, you're also establishing the fact that the smaller guys can't compete with the bigger guys thus strengthening the perception of weakness surrounding the CWs.

Secondly, enforcing the weight rule with some while completely ignoring it with others (Balor, Zayn, Enzo, etc.) makes the competitors labeled as "cruiserweights" feel like they're the lower totem "small guys" in the WWE. The guys who need their own division because they aren't able to get it done otherwise. Again, that leads to the perception that the cruiserweight wrestlers can't hang with the rest of the roster (see point one). And lastly, if you have the cruiserweights competing with and beating the "regular roster wrestlers", you basically show your fanbase how completely idiotic it is to even have a cruiserweight division in the first place.

On the other hand, if you go ahead with the scenario you laid out with one or two guys, in which you have them dominating the division and attempting to work their way out of it by challenging wrestlers "above their weight-class," it could work. For instance, if they wanted to transition Neville out of the CW division and make him an incredibly big deal, your idea would be a good one. It probably will never happen with Neville, but if you had a guy who came out of nowhere and had undeniable star quality, for instance if someone like Daniel Bryan started in the CW division and over time became remarkably over with the fans, I don't see why something like this couldn't work. It would have to be an extremely rare occurence though if they wanted the CW division to still be a thing.
 
Maybe back in the 90's this would have been a RAW Main Event match. But where WWE is at now, you have Neville as the King of the CW's, like the Brock Lesner of that division who shows up to the shows. Unbeatable, vicious and really the best version of Neville ever. But it's still the CW division so it means nothing. Brock is booked now as the God-like monster of the wrestling world. You can't put any CW up against him now without a squash match happening. It's just where WWE is at. Maybe if the CW division was never brought back it would make sense if Neville was given a Roman-like push to the main event picture. I'm all for thinking outside the box ideas, but this is outside the box and right off the table right now.
 
This is something that would have some chance of success if Vince McMahon and Kevin Dunn weren't the ones basically calling the shots among the CW Division. From what we've seen and based on various reports since the debut of 205 Live, the division isn't remotely what Triple H envisioned. If Triple H had the full creative team he wanted and had the final word on what went down, then it's something that I believe would have some chance of working.

However, I'm not sure that this is something that Vince would even consider because he still subscribes to lookism to a pretty strong degree and, a good deal of the time, still likes to categorize wrestlers based on physical appearance. For instance, if you're a 250 lbs. bruiser, he doesn't want you going to the air very much, nor does he want you using a chokeslam or something if you're not a 250 lbs. bruiser. I just think Vince would just simply look at Neville and say that it wouldn't work and wouldn't give it a shot. And from a physical perspective and appearance, Neville has one of the most powerful builds anyone on the roster. Neville has the sort of thick, stocky, muscled build of someone like Chris Benoit; Neville is billed to weigh 195 to 200 lbs. but the fact that he has that much muscle mass built onto a 5'7" or so frame makes him look like he could easily pass for 225 or so.
 
Neville has really shined since he switched to the Cruiserweight division. I think he's probably one of the only ones I could buy mixing it up with the main roster. With the right booking I could believe Neville being a believable opponent for a Brock Lesnar. I hope once his run with The Cruiserwieght title is over he does get chance to shine outside of The Cruiserweight division.
 
Reality is there are three Cruisers who can move out of that division... Neville, Aries and Jack Gallagher... the others are destined to remain there or be released.

Gallagher has the character to make it on the main roster and some little known MMA pedigree, so that can only help him. They put him with a Diva, maybe Paige when she returns, give her a catsuit and have them play "Avengers" like the 60's show... will see merch and be a reasonable way to rehabilitate Paige back into the good graces. That gimmick would possibly see him a US/IC contender but that's about it...

Aries can always move into it on name value alone...

Neville can easily be IC champ... he could potentially even be that guy to be the first British World Champ if they booked it right... is it beating Brock? Hell no, but a win on a UK PPV or RAW and he loses it relatively quickly could easily happen in a year or so.
 
I'm not interested in this. As much as I like Neville, too much damage has been done to the Cruiserweight division and with Neville being the top guy of that division he would would have no chance against Brock. No matter how much they could try to build him up it simply would not be believable. If the intention would be to use this angle as a way to bring the Cruiserweights to a point where they are facing more people on the regular Raw roster then it wouldn't take something as extreme as this to get it done. All it would take is simply removing the distinctions they use that treat the Cruiserweights as inferior. Get rid of 205 Live. Get rid of the purple ropes. Let them face the rest of the roster regularly. Look at the Rich Swann & Sasha Banks VS Noam Dar & Alicia Fox match from Extreme Rules last month. All we need is more of these kinds of matches. Sure, it was two Cruiserweight men and two Raw women but this match didn't feel like an "unimportant Cruiserweight" match. Swann and Dar looked like they belonged on Raw. If they have guys like Jack or TJP facing Raw midcarders that would do a whole lot more than an angle of Neville getting destroyed by Lesnar. Interesting idea, I just don't see it doing anyone involved any favors. Neville's better off where he is unless they do away with 205 Live and Lesnar has better opponents to face.
 
I don't really love the idea of Neville vs. Brock.

But, I am all in favor of Neville to step out of the cruiserweight division and chase other titles or just other feuds in general. I like the idea of a really heated personal feud between Neville and Rollins, or Neville vs. Ambrose. I created a thread awhile ago about Balor joining the cruiserweight division to feud with Neville. While I understand that a lot of people don't like the idea of him joining the cruiserweights, I still like the idea of the feud in general. Not for cruiserweight title, just a one on one feud. There are other guys Neville could fight that would be interesting.

The only other guy in the cruiserweight division that I would like to see step out is Austin Aries. I think he would do really well on Smackdown Live. He could feud with KO, Dolph, Sami Zayn, even Randy Orton would be somewhat interesting to me.

The biggest problem with taking those two guys away from the cruiserweight division is the MAJOR hole that leaves for interesting matches within the rest of the division. I could see Hideo Itami being a nice addition to the group of cruiserweights. I also think Jack Gallagher deserves a title reign. So Hideo vs. Jack could spark some interest for me. But from there, idk where else to go. Maybe if they sign Richoette (sp?) or if they put Tyler Bate in the division. But I just don't care about any of the other cruiserweights. TJP, Cedric Alexander, Noam Darr, Tozowa, etc. none of these guys do anything for me.
 
forget the whole Brock vs. Neville idea.....just have Cruiserweights battle others in various feuds. just because they are Cruiserweights doesnt mean they can't/shouldnt be in a personal feud. For Example, have some heel (Cruiserweight or not) feud with a top star over something. For example, say Dean Ambrose loses to Miz (Again), on the next RAW, have say (for example) The Brian Kendrick come out and call him a 2 time loser and then have Kendrick cheap shot Ambrose to kick start it.

the issue with the Cruiserweights on RAW is that most of the feuds they are in are either 1) old or 2) we'll see another match similar to it on 205 Live. and Speaking of Austin Aries, my hope is that when he's healthy, he moves onto the IC Championship. i think he and Miz would have a great feud if WWE lets Aries do his mic work.
 

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