Minutes to Bell Time

                    CruiserWeight Championship Preview

                    CruiserWeight Championship Preview

                    CruiserWeight Championship Preview

                    Before getting to the CruiserWeight Championship tournament preview, its interesting to note that both AEW and WWE are currently running tournaments to crown new champions. This comes at a time where New Japan has stopped running shows through at least May 4th. I bring up New Japan only because they run a minimum of five tournaments each year with the predominate format being round robin. If you’re unfamiliar with New Japan, there is a small section at the end of this post describing the typical New Japan tournament schedule. For good reason too, they’re good at it. WWE’s CruiserWeight championship tournament is using the round robin format, which is counter to their normal tournament style. If the experiment pays off in a better product or more interest, then maybe we’ll see it again some time down the road especially if NXT Japan eventually happens.

                    Tournament Time in the U.S.

                    All Elite Wrestling just began an eight-man single elimination tournament to crown the inaugural TNT Champion. With the COVID-19 pandemic causing travel issues for the current UK based CruiserWeight Champion Jordan Devlin, WWE announced a tournament to crown an interim CruiserWeight champion. AEW’s single elimination tournament will likely feature better matches and will have a more important championship at stake. But I believe the WWE’s round robin CruiserWeight championship tournament has more potential to influence the future.

                    CruiserWeight Championship Preview

                    While WWE has held several King of the Rings and other single elimination tournaments to crown vacant championships, I can’t remember a single round robin tournament in the entirety of the WWE’s post-WrestleMania era. While a round robin tournament requires a more patient audience, the format also offers greater potential for better long term story lines. Let’s say Kushida wins the tournament, but he loses to Jake Atlas along the way. Jake Atlas immediately has a viable reason to challenge Kushida for the CruiserWeight Championship. There are a thousand ways to create story lines and play off the tournament action. What happens if Kushida and Tony Nese wrestle to a draw on night one and they go on to both defeat Jake Atlas and Drake Maverick? They both end up at 2-2. Are they both eliminated? Do they have another match?

                    Block 1 – CruiserWeight Championship Preview

                    Drake Maverick has not competed in 2020.

                    Kushida (3-1)

                    Kushida is a two time winner of the New Japan Best of the Super Juniors Tournament. He comes into this tournament with victories over Danny Burch, Joaquin Wilde, and Raul Mendoza. He came up short in a match with the NXT champion Adam Cole.

                    Tony Nese (3-5)

                    Nese has racked up a bunch of losses in 2020 including Cameron Grimes, Lio Rush, Jordan Devlin, Tyler Breeze, and Angel Garza.  He does have three victories over Danny Burch, Oney Lorcan, and Lio Rush.

                    Jake Atlas (0-1)

                    Jake Atlas just had his debut on NXT in a losing effort against

                    Block 2 – CruiserWeight Championship Preview

                    El Hijo del Fantasma has not competed in 2020.

                    Jack Gallagher (1-0-0-1)

                    Gallagher has a victory over Tyler Breeze and a no contest finish against Oney Lorcan.

                    Akira Tozawa (0-2)

                    Tozawa’s two matches for the year were losing efforts to Aleister Black and AJ Styles.

                    Isaiah Swerve Scott (5-2)

                    Scott has victories over Joaquin Wilde, Raul Mendoza, Oney Lorcan, Ariya Daivari, and both Lio Rush and Tyler Breeze in a triple threat match. His losses came at the hands of Angel Garza and Austin Theory.

                    Minutes to Bell Time Prediction

                    As predicted and hoped for on the Minutes to Bell Time Instagram, I’m looking for Kushida to defeat Isaiah Swerve Scott in the finals.

                     

                    Bonus: The Best Promotion for Tournaments: New Japan Pro Wrestling

                    New Japan Pro Wrestling runs tournaments all year with their G1 Climax Tournament featuring some of the year’s best wrestling. The G1 field consists of 20 wrestlers broken into two blocks: “A Block” and “B Block.” Each block represents a round robin tournament where wrestlers receive points based on the outcomes of their matches (2 points for a win, 1 point for a draw, no points for a loss). The block winners face each other in the G1 Climax Finals. The G1 Winner receives an IWGP Heavyweight Championship match at Wrestle Kingdom. 

                    New Japan holds the same type of tournament for Junior Heavyweights (Best of the Super Juniors) and Tag Teams (World Tag League and Super Jr. Tag League) at different parts of the year. Before all that round robin action, New Japan begins the year with a massive single elimination tournament called the New Japan Cup.

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