The history of the WWF Light Heavyweight Championship

Act II: The “Real” Beginning – 1997

Fast forward to 1997, when the WWF said, “Forget that whole 16-year history - THIS is the real beginning.” The title was rebooted in a tournament on Raw, and the final was held at the December PPV: D-Generation X: In Your House.

The winner? My boy, Taka Michinoku - a high-flying Japanese sensation with a devastating move called the Michinoku Driver, which sounds like a Japanese knock off of Uber.

Taka was awesome — fast, technical, charismatic. He defended the belt against challengers like Brian Christopher, Scott Taylor (later known as Too Cool), and fellow Japanese imports Kaientai. 

Act III: Lineage

Over the next couple of years the presentation of the title was spotty at best. Given the constant casual racism directed towards Taka and the rest of Kaientai from commentator Jerry Lawler and booker Vince Russo’s later comments in WCW that “no one gives a shit about the Japanese guy or the Mexican guy, as an American” it's easy to see why it wasn’t featured on TV more - all the best light heavyweights at the time came from outside America.

Some Highlights included:

• Christian winning the belt in his debut match. No pressure, kid.
• Scotty 2 Hotty and Dean Malenko trading the title back and forth in matches fans of that era still remember fondly 20+ years later.
• Gillberg holding the title for 15 months - yes, 15 months. This was a guy whose gimmick was a parody of Goldberg, complete with sparklers and asthma. He effectively rendered the title as “retired” for the entirety of 1999.
• Essa Rios who’s biggest contribution to wrestling was his valet, Lita. 

The division had talent, but never consistent booking. One week they were on Heat, the next they were gone. I lamented this multiple times over my coverage of the period but the fact is there was plenty of talent to make the title a success. In the WWF, character was king and just being a good wrestler wasn’t enough in the late 90s. That being said, Crash Holly with his gimmick of a little guy who genuinely believed he was 400lbs seems tailor made for a run with the Light Heavyweight title, Scotty 2 Hotty, Grandmaster Sexay, Christian, Jeff Hardy, X-Pac, Jerry Lynn, ladies’ man Dean Malenko…It’s hard to say that the company couldn’t have done something with the title and all those men if they’d really wanted to. There were even points where Chyna winning it and adding another men’s championship to her resume would have been logical. She was always a top star and would have raised its profile. Alas, no. They did seem to finally start putting things together in the summer of 2001 with regular defences and even PPV appearances for the gold, and the import of Tajiri (another incredibly talented Japanese wrestler with a mountain of charisma) and a ton of Cruiserweights from recently acquired WCW could only help right? Right. 

Act IV: The End (and the WCW Invasion)

By March 2001, WCW had folded, and the Invasion storyline meant that the WWF now had another “little guy” belt — the WCW Cruiserweight Championship, which came with actual prestige and a lineage that didn’t start in a McDonald’s car park.

So what did the WWF do?

That’s right - they quietly retired their own title, and pretended it never happened.

The final WWF Light Heavyweight Champion was X-Pac. He had some good matches and was the focus of the division during the early Invasion but an injury sidelined him meaning the Championship Unification match with WCW’s Cruiserweight title couldn’t take place.

assume that if it had, the title Tajiri held which was eventually rechristened the WWF Cruiserweight Championship would have been the one retired and we’d have kept the Light Heavyweight crown. X-Pac didn’t return until March 2002 and after defending the title on a couple of house show events, turned back up on TV without the title. I don’t think it’s been mentioned since. In the end, it existed for less than five years and it spent a good two or three of those not being on TV. 

Final Thoughts

Today, the WWF Light Heavyweight Championship is a footnote, a trivia answer, and an occasional “Oh yeah, I remember that!” in Reddit comment threads.

WWE doesn’t acknowledge its full lineage, and good luck finding it on Netflix unless you’re part detective, part historian, and 100% insomniac.

But I remember.

I remember the flips, the matches, the bizarre booking decisions, and yes - I remember Taka. My boy. 

So here’s to you, WWF Light Heavyweight Championship — you weren’t always polished, you weren’t always featured, but you were our quirky little cruiserweight chaos belt, and that counts for something. Maybe.