Buddy Murphy asks and he shall receive

Buddy Murphy is in need of a challenge.

In the four months he’s been WWE Cruiserweight Champion, he’s swatted aside challenges from Mustafa Ali and former champion Cedric Alexander. Ali, mind you, got promoted to SmackDown as a heavyweight immediately after his program with Murphy ended, and went on to pin WWE Champion and arguable best wrestler of his generation Daniel Bryan.

Buddy beat him. Clean. 1-2-3.

So while he is only four months and two title defenses in, when a man has a legitimate claim to beating the man that holds one of the two most prestigious titles in pro wrestling, well... it’s only fair that he ask for a challenge.

Lo and behold, 205 Live general manager Drake Maverick delivers not just one tough opponent, or two, but three! Let’s take a look at how they all got here, shall we?

Akira Tozawa

For most of the last six months, Tozawa has been embroiled in a feud with Drew Gulak and his Campaign for a Better 205 Live. He beat Brian Kendrick and Jack Gallagher both and then a funny thing happened— Gulak and Gallagher decided Kendrick was the weak link, beat him up, and threw him out.

So Brian picked himself up, dusted himself off, and decided that he needed to be a better man. And what’s more, the veteran decided that the best way to do this would be to take Tozawa under his wing. So together, they vanquished Drew and Jack together in a tag team street fight before Akira got a chance to qualify for this match opposite Gulak in a hell of a match.

Hideo Itami

After losing his feud against Mustafa Ali very definitively back in October, Itami took a month off from 205 Live. When he came back, another man who had been MIA for some time showed up to show his appreciation and offer his services as a combination hype man / bodyguard, Ariya Daivari.

Initially skeptical, Hideo soon welcomed Daivari into his circle and, much like Tozawa, found himself victorious time and again, beating Noam Dar, Cedric Alexander (to qualify for this match), and indeed, of Buddy’s three challengers, he comes in with the most momentum, having won a triple threat between them on the go-home episode of 205 Live.

Kalisto

Kalisto has been spinning more plates than anybody on his way to this match. Like the rest of Lucha House Party, he’s been pulling double duty as part of Raw’s tag division, and while they haven’t seen notable success on the flagship show, Kalisto did defeat fellow two-show superstar Lio Rush to qualify for this match.

Well, with a little help from his friends after Lio got caught up in practically begging Lince Dorado to hit him for the DQ, that is.

So, those are your challengers

As far as the match itself goes, Buddy has to be the favorite, both on the back of his victories as well as the mighty power of statistics, given that champions in multi-man matches tend to retain more than your intuition might suggest.

Are we going to have a new champion or will Murphy’s Law prevail?