Tournaments Aren’t WWE’s Thing

Despite recent success with The U.K Championship tournament, Cruiserweight Classic and even the Mae Young Classic, WWE tournaments still don’t have the same impact as tournaments of yesteryear. For example, King of The Ring was a launching point for Stone Cold Steve Austin, Brock Lesnar and Edge, and it also cemented the credibility of Owen Hart and Kurt Angle. While some wrestlers have had great performances in the modern-day tournaments, they haven’t been able to capitalize on those outings to advance their careers.

The biggest issue with today’s WWE tournaments is that they’re regarded as second-tier. It’s why the relaunch of the King of the Ring in the late 2000s and in 2015 were duds. It wasn’t presented on the same stage as it once was and that issue is still present today. The Mae Young Classic has been attached to NXT and is viewed as a developmental tournament. Kairi Sane, the winner of the inaugural MYC, was placed in NXT and has taken a year to properly enter the NXT Women’s Championship picture, even being jumped over in line by who she beat in the finals – Shayna Baszler. Nearly a year later, they are in the same position. You would think that winning such a prominent tournament would elevate Sane’s career to the main roster, having her feud with Natalya, Dana Brooke and Mickie James before entering the title scene against Alexa Bliss.

Don’t get me started on the Cruiserweight Classic. Whether it was due to his in-ring performance or terrible booking, T.J. Perkins flopped as the tournament winner and Cruiserweight Champion. Now the cruiserweights are not even on the main roster and there hasn’t been another tournament of its kind even hinted at.

The U.K. tournament has been received with mixed results. After the 2017 edition, the new project went silent until Tyler Bate defended the belt at U.K. promotions with a relationship with WWE. Then the U.K. Championship became affiliated with NXT as Pete Dunne would win the title at NXT Takeover: Chicago. It has yet to be defended on a major WWE pay-per-view, and is on trend to be viewed as second tier.

Meanwhile, other companies have maintained the prominence of their tournaments. Look at New Japan Pro Wrestling, which used the G1 Climax to catapult Kenny Omega into a yearlong chase to the Heavyweight Title. NJPW also used its Best of the Super Juniors to cement Will Ospreay as the next big junior heavyweight. On a lesser scale, the Scenic City Invitational in Tennessee welcomes the hottest rising talent along the East Coast, with last year’s winner Matt Riddle going on to most likely join WWE.

Time will tell if WWE will feature tournaments in a prominent position again. Although Vince McMahon feels the King of the Ring is an outdated concept (as revealed by Bruce Prichard), it was an easy star-making tool and could provide content to the WWE Network. Hell, let’s go back to the WWE Championship tournament at WrestleMania IV, when the stakes were never higher. “Macho Man” Randy Savage cemented his legacy as one of the all-time greats by competing in four matches in one night, emerging victorious in all of them.

If WWE wanted to bring tournaments back to their former glory, the talent is there: whether it be tag teams, women or men. The scheduling is even there; instead of having so many themed PPVs, replace the lackluster Extreme Rules with the Mae Young Classic or scratch Hell in a Cell and insert another Cruiserweight Classic.

If WWE doesn’t present tournaments as a big deal, why should the viewer care?