Despite all the previous years of drafts and trades, along with all of the promotional material only stating that Raw and SmackDown talent can go between shows, it would be nice to see 205 Live get SOMETHING in the deal.
It doesn’t need to be much—nobody should realistically expect Finn Balor, Xavier Woods and Chad Gable to all abandon their teams and become cruiserweights just because they meet the weight limit, or for there to be an announcement that 205 Live is getting a seat at the big table with a true show on USA, but it will be disappointing to see this go by without even one minuscule bonus for the cruiserweights.
So here are my proposals:
- Buddy Murphy stops being listed on WWE.com as an NXT Superstar and officially joins the 205 Live roster. It only makes sense, considering his status as the likely No. 1 contender to the Cruiserweight Championship.
- Lio Rush graduates from NXT and gets signed by 205 Live. He’s just going to be a jobber in developmental if he stays around there, and the live event crew folk like Raul Mendoza already take care of those positions anyway. At least if he’s a jobber on 205 Live, he’s had some upward momentum in his career.
- Drake Maverick issues a statement that there is some sort of “talent swap program” where, in the spirit of the recent tournament as well as the Superstar Shake-up itself, he’s spoken to Kurt Angle, Paige, William Regal and other general managers and come to an agreement that 205 Live can borrow wrestlers from time to time who meet the weight limit. This allows for folks like Pete Dunne (205), Ricochet (188), Johnny Gargano (199) and The Singh Brothers (159 and 144) to make appearances every now and again, but they don’t have to be committed to staying off Raw and SmackDown.
- I would love to see Sin Cara show up in 205 Live as a heel to offset how all three other masked wrestlers are part of The Lucha House Party. It isn’t like he’s up to much on SmackDown as he hasn’t been seen since losing that random feud to Baron Corbin months and months ago.
These aren’t huge, dynamic shifts that will ruin anything, but they are moves that could prop 205 Live up just a little bit more and generate at least a little buzz so it doesn’t come off like even WWE can’t be bothered to pay attention to it.
Whenever it seems like the company itself has very little value in something, that attitude trickles down to the viewer, which is exactly why SmackDown will always remain the B-show, as it is never in question whether Raw is the priority or not.
Based off nearly every single year in the history of WWE doing drafts, we can anticipate that Raw will come out of this Superstar Shake-up looking like it has the better roster, SmackDown will seem like it has a bit of a struggle ahead with less resources, NXT will either remain the same or have more talent picked up to go to the main roster and 205 Live will either be a complete afterthought, or worse, unless something is done to give it a speck of the spotlight.
Don’t be surprised if Tuesday comes and goes with the purple and orange brand coming off more like the redheaded stepchild and getting no love (just an expression; don’t hurt me, Sheamus). Also, because of that, don’t be surprised if the stigma of 205 Live as a superfluous spinoff and extra material “you don’t have to watch” continues to stick around because of it being pushed aside here.
One or two minor things can go a long way in helping the cruiserweight division seem more important. The only question is if WWE values the show enough to take a minute or so to acknowledge it and, as John Cena would say, do something.
