Chris Champion had a semi successful run in the NWA under the New Breed tag team with Sean Royal back in the 1980’s. Champion would bounce around several territories after the New Breed split up and went their separate ways. Dusty Rhodes always enjoyed Champion’s work and apparently became a favorite of the American Dream. In 1993, Chris Champion returned to WCW and with that, came up with a gimmick to reintroduce himself to fans.
Chris Champion developed the gimmick of an evil martial artist complete with long hair, Fu Manchu mustache, tattoos and dressed in ancient Chinese warrior garb. Champion named the character Yo Chi Kwan and hailed from Hong Kong. Unfortunately, the gimmick had to be tweaked after WCW announcer called Yo Chi Kwan…Yoshi Kwan. The new name stuck and made it look like the character was Japanese instead of Chinese.
In either case, Champion was really Caucasian and not in any way Asian…although he used eyeliner and makeup to make him appear as if he was of Asian descent. Yoshi Kwan was paired up with Harley Race as his manager and mouthpiece. He scored victories over 2 Cold Scorpio and Brad Armstrong. Kwan then had a feud with Cactus Jack and was planned for a match against Ricky Steamboat. Before he could begin a program with Steamboat, Kwan suffered a serious knee injury and his gimmick was ultimately dropped completely.
david fullam
Ah yes, WCW braintrust. Take a man named Kwan, but say he is Japanese.