At the end of this past week, WWE gathered some of the most talented wrestlers from across the world and began filming the Cruiserweight Classic. For months they have been slowly building the hype level with short previews of certain wrestlers, interviews on the website and even clips of qualifying matches from some of the independent promotions that held them.
That stuff was all very surreal, but none as much as the coverage of the beginning of the CWC that WWE broadcasted on Facebook Live. They showed the weigh-ins, guys being filmed moving around the ring for promo videos, interviews with some of the participants and, from the actual taping itself, Daniel Bryan and Mauro Ranallo covering the live introductions of all 32 wrestlers in the ring in front of the Full Sail audience.
We now know what the show will look like, got to hear some interaction between what appears to be a stellar combination of a commentary team and it finally feels real.
Zack Sabre Jr. is an easy favorite in the tournament, the late additions of Cedric Alexander and Tony Nese are spectacular and the brothers Sihra are extremely entertaining and I’m really rooting for them to get signed to full-time contracts. The choice to bring in Brian Kendrick and Tajiri was a great surprise, and it’s great to see Tommaso Ciampa and Johnny Gargano in the tournament as well.
My pick, overall, and hopefully he didn’t lose at the first taping, is Rich Swann. He’s taking on one of the least intriguing wrestlers in the tournament, Jason Lee, in the first round, and I think WWE may use this as Swann’s coming out party. A win in a summer-long event like this is going to give him a higher profile immediately, and it will put him in a very advantageous position when he does make his debut in NXT.
The brackets will be revealed a week from Wednesday in a “bracketology” episode, and then on July 13, the first set of matches will begin airing on the WWE Network. This truly feels like it is going to be something extremely special.