As announced last night on 205 Live, the last mystery entrant into the Cruiserweight Championship tournament is NXT’s Buddy Murphy, who will be facing Ariya Daivari next week as the opening round of the tournament concludes. The other final match will see Mustafa Ali facing “Gentleman” Jack Gallagher.
The secret's OUT as @WWENXT Superstar @WWE_Murphy arrives on #205Live NEXT WEEK as part of the @WWE #Cruiserweight Championship tournament! pic.twitter.com/iRTG8hTQCw
— WWE (@WWE) February 14, 2018
Blake Murphy has been practically absent from NXT television for quite some time, a real fall from grace for the former NXT Tag Team Champion. Alongside Wesley Blake, the team of Blake & Murphy held the NXT Tag titles for 219 days for the first third of 2015. But even after being paired with Murphy’s real life fiancé Alexa Bliss, the pair never recaptured their 2015 glory and had their last match together in April 2016 against Shinsuke Nakamura and Austin Aries.
Murphy spent the rest of 2016 and all of 2017 being repackaged as a singles wrestler, with his last televised appearance coming in December of 2016 when he paired with Tye Dillinger in a tag team victory over Bobby Roode and Elias, but that match was more to hype the feud between Roode and Dillinger. He’s worked most NXT Live Events and tours, but was kept off television. He’s been working a gimmick highlighting his absenteeism from television, going by the slogan “Wrestling’s Best Kept Secret” and in recent NXT Live Events he’d begun working the main events against Aleister Black.
The Cruiserweight Championship tournament has been garnering high praise from critics and fans alike since it began, as it’s returned the division to the style and presentation of the Cruiserweight Classic that spawned the division in the first place. Much of that credit is going towards Triple H, who has been appointed 205 Live‘s new show runner, taking over from Vince McMahon.
So far in the tournament there have been some upsets, such as Hideo Itami losing to Roderick Strong and Mark Andrews defeating Akira Tozawa, adding to the tournaments excitement. Joining Strong and Andrews in the second round, starting in two weeks, are Cedric Alexander, Drew Gulak, Kalisto and CWC winner TJ Perkins.
