'Global Cruiserweight Series' Added to WWE Network Programming for 2016

WWE announced Tuesday it will air the Global Cruiserweight Series on the WWE Network in 2016 beginning on July 13.

The event will take place over 10 weeks at Full Sail University in Orlando, Florida—the home of WWE's developmental arm—and 32 wrestlers will take part.

In an interview with Scott Fishman of Channel Guide Magazine, Triple H discussed the reasoning behind creating the Global Cruiserweight Series:

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If you want to refer to us as a combat sport, I think the lighter, faster guys can sometimes be as — if not more — exciting than anything else you see. I wanted to exploit that in a bigger way. Sometimes when we get into cruiserweight talents on Raw or SmackDown or even NXT, the sizes vary so much with talent. Here, you put them in their own environment and against a similar style performer. It puts it them on a whole new playing field. I really wanted to go down the road of seeing what they can do in that environment.

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Triple H added that he and WWE officials are working with other wrestling companies to attract the world's best talent. One NXT star has already signaled his interest:  

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Should I drop weight to enter the #GlobalCruiserweightSeries? 樂

— WWE Murphy (@WWE_Murphy) February 16, 2016"

There's little not to like about this announcement. In the past, WWE brought back King of the Ring for the WWE Network and also the Beast in the East special from Tokyo on July 4 last year as Network exclusives. Beyond its obvious value as a video archive, the Network should be utilized to allow WWE to branch out in ways that its current television-programming schedule otherwise can't.

Cruiserweight wrestling has never caught on in WWE like it did in WCW in the mid-to-late 1990s. Even when the company hired Rey Mysterio—one of the best cruiserweights in the world in his prime—the Superstar was forced to significantly alter his unique approach.

As Triple H alluded to, giving cruiserweight wrestling a stage outside of Raw and SmackDown should allow the wrestlers to fully embrace what makes that style different from what fans have come to expect from a WWE match.