Great Ideas That Didn’t Last: WWE Signs The Ultimo Dragon

Posted on September 7, 2018 by bdamage1

Brian Damage

Throughout the history of pro wrestling bookers and promoters have always tried to come up with new, creative and innovative ideas to generate interest in their product. Some ideas have not only succeeded…but flourished. Others were DOA from the get go. Then there are those ideas which initially were innovative but, for various reasons, faded away. Those are the focus of this latest series of posts titled ‘Great Ideas That Didn’t Last’.

After the huge in ring and the successful marketing of Rey Mysterio, the WWE certainly wasn’t opposed to bringing in more masked cruiserweights into the company. In the past, Vince McMahon was never really a fan of wrestlers who wore masks. He simply didn’t see the money that could be made off of a wrestler who you couldn’t see his face. That of course all changed with the success of Mysterio.

So when people like Chris Jericho (a longtime friend of Ultimo Dragon) and a select few others recommended the WWE sign Ultimo…it seemed like a slam dunk. The Ultimo Dragon had worldwide success wrestling in places like Japan, Mexico and here in the states for WCW. Vince McMahon saw another successful version of Rey Mysterio. A character that could do all the high spots like Mysterio as well as sell thousands of Ultimo Dragon masks. It was a win win….or so it seemed.

The Ultimo Dragon had considerably scaled back his workload ever since he suffered an arm injury while working for WCW. The initial surgery he had was botched by WCW appointed surgeons and he wound up filing a lawsuit against them. Despite the fact that he was semi retired at the time….when the WWE came calling…he almost immediately accepted the offer.

There were two major factors as to why Ultimo Dragon signed with the WWE in 2003. He always wanted to wrestle a match at the famed Madison Square Garden in New York City and he always wanted to have a match at Wrestlemania. It all seemed like the perfect marriage between the two sides. Unfortunately, the honeymoon stage of this relationship didn’t last very long.

A series of vignettes began airing, hyping the Dragon’s WWE debut. When he started wrestling dark matches…it almost became immediately clear that Ultimo Dragon was not the same wrestler that Rey Mysterio was. While Dragon could do some high risk maneuvers, he was more of a technical wrestler. It was rumored that Vince was instantly turned off by that fact and began having buyer’s remorse.

Add to that, WWE director Kevin Dunn was apparently also not a fan of his. Dunn like McMahon was not a big fan of luchadors or masked wrestlers. Apparently, he always had a hard time distinguishing who was who during a match with two or more masked wrestlers or luchadors. With management quickly losing interest in Ultimo during his dark matches…he finally made his Smackdown television debut about two months after being signed.

The place was Madison Square Garden and he defeated Shannon Moore…scratching one thing off his bucket list. After his victory in his debut…Ultimo was used very sparingly and wasn’t used for weeks at a time. The next big match Ultimo had was when he competed at Wrestlemania 20. The highlight or lowlight of this event for Dragon was during his entrance. Ultimo tripped and fell over his own cape during his introduction.

It seemed harmless enough, but the rumors started to spread that that was the definitive moment when McMahon knew he was no longer interested in working with Ultimo Dragon. Rumor or not, less than a month later after his mishap…it was reported that Ultimo Dragon and WWE mutually parted ways. While many would say this was a failed opportunity for WWE and Ultimo…the fact is, he still had the opportunity to do the two things he set out to do. Wrestle at MSG and compete at a Wrestlemania. It is just a shame that his time in WWE couldn’t have been more fruitful.