(born December 12, 1966) is a Japanese

professional wrestler Professional wrestling is a form of theater that revolves around staged wrestling matches. The mock combat is performed in a ring similar to the kind used in boxing, and the dramatic aspects of pro wrestling may be performed both in the ring o ...

and actor, better known as . In addition to having trained in Japan, Asai learned to wrestle in the lucha libre style while working in

Mexico Mexico (Spanish language, Spanish: México), officially the United Mexican States, is a List of sovereign states, country in the southern portion of North America. It is borders of Mexico, bordered to the north by the United States; to the so ...

. He is credited with popularizing the " Asai Moonsault". On October 11, 1996, Asai won the J-Crown, a unification of eight lower weight division titles from various international promotions. At the time, he already held the NWA World Middleweight Championship; during this reign he also became the WCW Cruiserweight Champion, making him the most decorated wrestler in history.Asai also became a co-holder of the WAR World Six-Man Tag Team Championship in October 1996, but it was retired that same day and was thus never defended by him From December 29, 1996, through January 4, 1997, he concurrently held ten titles, a record which still stands. From 2013 until 2019, he competed primarily for

All Japan Pro Wrestling (AJPW/AJP) or simply All Japan is a Japanese professional wrestling promotion established on October 21, 1972 when Giant Baba split away from the Japanese Wrestling Association and created his own promotion. Many wrestlers had left with Baba ...

(AJPW) as a freelancer. In 2019, he joined Dragon Gate as a senior advisor and wrestler.

Professional wrestling career

Early years (1987–1996)

Asai trained in the

New Japan Pro-Wrestling (NJPW) is a Japanese professional wrestling promotion based in Nakano, Tokyo. Founded on January 13, 1972, by Antonio Inoki, the promotion was sold to Yuke's, who later sold it to Bushiroad in 2012. TV Asahi and Amuse, Inc. own minority sha ...

(NJPW) dojo in 1987, but was not drafted up by the promotion due to his small size. He moved to Mexico where he joined the Universal Wrestling Association and subsequently won the UWA World Welterweight Championship in 1988. In March 1990, he joined the Universal Wrestling Federation in Japan. He also competed in the Universal Lucha Libre promotion founded by his mentor Gran Hamada. In 1991, he signed with the Mexican Consejo Mundial de Lucha Libre (CMLL) promotion. In CMLL, he adopted the Último Dragón mask and persona. "Último Dragón", which means "Last Dragon" in Spanish, was initially a

gimmick A gimmick is a novel device or idea designed primarily to attract attention or increase appeal, often with little intrinsic value. When applied to retail marketing, it is a unique or quirky feature designed to make a product or service "stand ou ...

that saw Asai claiming to be the last student taught by legendary martial artist

Bruce Lee Bruce Lee (; born Lee Jun-fan, ; November 27, 1940 – July 20, 1973) was a Hong Kong and American martial artist and actor. He was the founder of Jeet Kune Do, a hybrid martial arts philosophy drawing from different combat disciplines th ...

, whose nickname was "The Dragon". The gimmick was later dropped, but the name remained. Late in 1992, Misteriosito was turned into "Último Dragoncito", a Mini-Estrella version of Asai. During the same period, Asai also signed with the Japanese WAR promotion, and due to co-promoting, he was able to wrestle for NJPW. In Japan, he became IWGP Junior heavyweight champion twice, and in Mexico, he held various titles. In later years, he wrestled for AAA.

World Championship Wrestling (1996–1998)

Asai made his American debut for the

World Championship Wrestling World Championship Wrestling, Inc. (WCW) was an American professional wrestling promotion founded by Ted Turner in 1988, after Turner Broadcasting System, through a subsidiary named Universal Wrestling Corporation, purchased the assets of Nati ...

(WCW) promotion in 1996 initially under the mistranslated name "Ultimate Dragon". He was referred to by this name for over a year in WCW until they reverted to using his Spanish ring name. He quickly was pushed into the lime-light of the WCW Cruiserweight division with Sonny Onoo as his manager. He was instantly a heel based upon the fact he was Japanese and Sonny Onoo was his manager. He made his WCW pay-per view debut in 1996's Hog Wild against

Rey Misterio Jr. Óscar Gutiérrez (born December 11, 1974), better known by his ring name Rey Mysterio, is an American professional wrestler. He is currently signed to WWE, where he performs on the SmackDown brand. Widely regarded as one of the greatest profes ...

for the WCW Cruiserweight Championship but lost. He got back the win at WCW World War 3 when he returned to WCW as the J-Crown champion. He then feuded with Dean Malenko for the WCW Cruiserweight title which he won at Starrcade 1996. Dragon later dropped the WCW Cruiserweight title back to Malenko but his stock was rising as he won the WCW World Television Championship from Prince Iaukea but lost it to

Steven Regal Darren Kenneth Matthews (born 10 May 1968), better known by the ring name William Regal, is an English retired professional wrestler. He is known for his over 20 years spent in WWE, as both a performer and an on-screen authority, and for his ti ...

. He then turned face by dropping Onoo as his manager and won back the WCW World Television title from Regal before losing to Alex Wright at Clash of the Champions XXXV. He would then win the WCW Cruiserweight title one last time from

Eddie Guerrero Eduardo Gory Guerrero Llanes (October 9, 1967 – November 13, 2005) was an American professional wrestler. He was a prominent member of the Guerrero wrestling family, being the son of first-generation wrestler Gory Guerrero. Eddie Guerrero ...

, before losing the title on the first '' WCW Thunder'' to

Juventud Guerrera Eduardo Aníbal González Hernández (born November 23, 1974) is a Mexican professional wrestler, better known by his ring name Juventud "Juvi" Guerrera. Guerrera is best known for his appearances with the Mexican professional wrestling prom ...

. He then suffered an arm injury in 1998 that required surgery. The operation was botched, causing nerve damage. It was thought that this would force an end of his career and he announced his retirement.

Toryumon (1997–2003)

In 1997, Asai then became a trainer and founded the Último Dragón Gym, where he trained three classes of students, "Toryumon Japan", "Toryumon 2000 Project" (T2P), and "Toryumon X". His first class of students, which included Don Fuji, Dragon Kid, Magnum Tokyo, Cima and Suwa, worked for WCW early in their career. In 1998, Asai began co-promoting Grupo Internacional Revolución (IWRG) based out of Mexico, where he trained several of the top young wrestlers. In 1999, a promotion named Toryumon opened, with the vast majority of the roster having been trained by Asai. Toryumon was later renamed Dragon Gate as Asai parted ways with the promotion. He continued to train students at his gym. In 2002, Asai underwent another surgery to repair the damage done to his arm in hopes of returning to wrestling. In late 2002 Ultimo Dragon was in talks with

World Wrestling Entertainment World Wrestling Entertainment, Inc., d/b/a as WWE, is an American professional wrestling promotion. A global integrated media and entertainment company, WWE has also branched out into other fields, including film, American football, and var ...

for another shot at a United States run. To get back into ring shape he returned to action for his T2P and Toryumon Mexico promotions. On November 26, he teamed with former WCW wrestlers Norman Smiley and Perry Saturn in a win against Masaaki Mochizuki, Kenichiro Arai and Toru Owashi for T2P. On December 7 he teamed with Mochizuki and Dragon Kid in a win over the team of Bestia Salvaje,

Scorpio Jr. Rafael Núñez Juan (born October 11, 1966) is a Mexican ''Luchador'' or professional wrestler who is best known under his Ring name Scorpio Jr. Núñez is the son of professional wrestler "Scorpio", and was trained by his father and Rafael Sala ...

and El Duende for Toryumon Mexico.

World Wrestling Entertainment (2003–2004)

In the spring of 2003, he signed with

as the ''Último Dragón'', seeking to realize his two lifelong goals of competing in

Madison Square Garden Madison Square Garden, colloquially known as The Garden or by its initials MSG, is a multi-purpose indoor arena in New York City. It is located in Midtown Manhattan between Seventh and Eighth avenues from 31st to 33rd Street, above Pennsylv ...

and performing at WrestleMania. He was brought in on the heels of the signing of Rey Mysterio on the belief that he would make as big of an impact as Mysterio did upon his WWE debut. Asai made his WWE debut in dark match victories against Rico, Crash Holly and Shannon Moore as they debuted a series of video packages hyping the debut of Dragon on '' SmackDown!''. He made his WWE television debut at Madison Square Garden on June 26, 2003 episode of ''SmackDown!'' in a match with Shannon Moore, where he debuted his finisher, the Asai DDT (a standing shiranui) to the American wrestling audience. Throughout the summer he competed in a tournament for the

WWE United States Championship The WWE United States Championship is a professional wrestling championship promoted by the American promotion WWE, currently defended on the Raw brand division. It is one of two secondary championships for WWE's main roster, along with the ...

beating Jamie Noble but losing to eventual winner,

. He quickly rebounded by beating Kanyon in a ''

WWE Heat ''WWE Heat'' (formerly known as ''Sunday Night Heat'' and also known as ''Heat'') is an American professional wrestling television program that was produced by World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) and aired from August 2, 1998 to May 30, 2008. Ori ...

'' match taped before Vengeance. He then wrestled on ''

WWE Velocity ''WWE Velocity'' was an American professional wrestling television program that was produced by World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) and ran from May 25, 2002 to June 11, 2006. It replaced two syndicated WWE shows, ''Jakked'' and ''Metal''. Once ...

'' for the next few weeks, leading to a match with Rey Mysterio on ''SmackDown''. Dragon won the match only after Tajiri interfered and showed respect to Dragon due to their Japanese heritage. The next week Dragon teamed with Mysterio to take on Tajiri and Nunzio. After this match, he was not seen on ''SmackDown!'' for several months until the build for the Cruiserweight Open at

WrestleMania XX WrestleMania XX was the 20th annual WrestleMania professional wrestling pay-per-view (PPV) event produced by World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE). It featured professional wrestlers from both of the promotion's two brands divisions – Raw a ...

. At the event, Dragon participated in the Open. Dragon's WrestleMania resulted in one of WrestleMania's most famous blunders, tripping as he entered the arena from the backstage area and tripping as he was going up the turnbuckle for a pose. The first trip was edited out of the WrestleMania XX DVD, but the second wasn't. After the open, he faced

Chavo Guerrero Salvador Guerrero IV (born October 20, 1970) better known by his ring names Chavo Guerrero and Chavo Guerrero Jr., is an American professional wrestler. He has previously worked for World Championship Wrestling (WCW), World Wrestling Federati ...

and Nunzio in his last WWE matches. On April 22, 2004, WWE announced that Asai was released from his WWE contract after Asai asked for his release from WWE to go back to Japan immediately.

Return to Japan (2004–present)

One month later after being released from WWE, Asai quickly picked up a New Japan tour on May 1, 2004. He has occasionally wrestled for the Consejo Mundial de Lucha Libre. He also took part in the short lived Japanese independent promotion Dragondoor, ran by one of his students Noriaki Kawabata using mostly T2P and Toryumon X graduates. He would wrestle in matches against Último Guerrero and various other stars who wrestled in Mexico or Japanese based lucha libre promotions. Since the fall of Dragondoor he went back to Mexico to run another class of the Toryumon school, which has led to some standouts in Hajime Ohara, Kazuchika Okada and Pequeño Ninja. The rest of the Toryumon students along with Asai joined the Tatsumi Fujinami promoted Dradition promotion in Japan. In 2006, Asai began promoting the annual "Toryumon Mexico: Dragon Mania" wrestling show. He also wrestled at UWA Hardcore Wrestling based outside of Toronto, Ontario, Canada. He has wrestled against Sonjay Dutt, M-Dogg 20,

Chris Sabin Joshua Harter (born February 4, 1982), better known by his ring name Chris Sabin, is an American professional wrestler. He is currently signed to Impact Wrestling, and is also known for his work in Ring of Honor. After being trained by Scot ...

Alex Shelley Patrick Kenneth Martin (born May 23, 1983) is an American professional wrestler and physical therapy clinician, better known by the ring name, Alex Shelley, makes appearances with Impact Wrestling (formerly known as Total Nonstop Action Wrestl ...

, Jyushin Thunder Liger and Black Tiger all in the UWA. Since then he has been working in Japan for various independent promotions such as Pro Wrestling Kageki and Michinoku Pro. He has also been to Mexico as well as in Spain, working for Nu Wrestling Evolution. On December 15, 2013, Dragón defeated

Yoshinobu Kanemaru is a Japanese professional wrestler, currently signed to New Japan Pro-Wrestling, where he also works as a backstage producer. Kanemaru is best known for his work in Pro Wrestling Noah, where he holds the records for the most reigns with the GHC ...

to win

's World Junior Heavyweight Championship. He lost the title to Atsushi Aoki on May 29, 2014. On August 27, 2017, he regained the title by defeating Tajiri. On August 30 and 31, 2014, Dragón participated in a show in

Pyongyang Pyongyang (, , ) is the capital and largest city of North Korea, where it is known as the "Capital of the Revolution". Pyongyang is located on the Taedong River about upstream from its mouth on the Yellow Sea. According to the 2008 populat ...

North Korea North Korea, officially the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK), is a country in East Asia. It constitutes the northern half of the Korean Peninsula and shares borders with China and Russia to the north, at the Yalu (Amnok) and T ...

promoted by the Inoki Genome Federation. He defeated Hajime Ohara on the first day and Heddi French on the second in singles matches. On March 22, 2015, Dragón won another title in All Japan, when he and

defeated Mitsuya Nagai and Takeshi Minamino for the All Asia Tag Team Championship. They vacated the title on October 14.

Movie career

Ultimo Dragon starred in two films in 2008. The first was ''

Bloodstained Memoirs ''Bloodstained Memoirs'' is a professional wrestling documentary released online via an official stream in 2009. It is compiled by interviews featuring wrestlers synonymous with different eras in wrestling (1970s to 2000s) and different wrestling ...

'', also starring Chris Jericho, Rob Van Dam, Mick Foley and Keiji Mutoh. Ultimo Dragon's scenes were filmed in the UK and Italy. The other was ''Ultimo Dragon'', a heroic martial arts story.

Championships and accomplishments

** All Asia Tag Team Championship ( 1 time) – with

** World Junior Heavyweight Championship (

2 times "2 Times" is a song co-written and recorded by British Italian-based singer Ann Lee. It was released in 1999 as the lead single from her debut album, ''Dreams'' (1999). The single entered and peaked at number two on the UK Singles Chart. Outside ...

) * Consejo Mundial de Lucha Libre ** NWA World Middleweight Championship (

)" *Comision de Box y Lucha D.F. ** Distrito Federal Trios Championship ( 1 time) – with Naoki Sano and Hirokazu Hata * International Wrestling Revolution Group ** Copa Higher Power (1998) – with Judo Suwa, Lyguila, Magnum Tokyo, Ryo Saito, Shiima Nobunaga and Sumo Fujii * International Wrestling Alliance **IWA Heavyweight Championship (1 time) **IWA Junior Heavyweight Championship (1 time) *

Michinoku Pro Wrestling (originally known as North Eastern Wrestling) is a Japanese professional wrestling promotion founded by The Great Sasuke on October 1, 1992. It was the first independent wrestling promotion in Japan to not base its operations in Tokyo, but rath ...

** British Commonwealth Junior Heavyweight Championship ( 1 time) ** Tohoku Tag Team Championship (

) – with Jinsei Shinzaki (1) and Kesen Numagirolamo (1) *

** IWGP Junior Heavyweight Championship (

) ** J-Crown ( 1 time) ** British Commonwealth Junior Heavyweight Championship ( 1 time) ** NWA World Junior Heavyweight Championship ( 1 time) ** NWA World Welterweight Championship (

) ** UWA World Junior Light Heavyweight Championship ( 1 time) **

WAR International Junior Heavyweight Championship The is a professional wrestling championship contested for in the Japanese professional wrestling promotion Tenryu Project. The title was established in 1995 in Wrestle Association R (WAR). There have been a total of 24 reigns shared between 17 ...

( 1 time) **

WWA World Junior Light Heavyweight Championship The WWA World Light Heavyweight Championship (''Campeonato Mundial Semi Completo de WWA'' in Spanish) is a singles professional wrestling championship promoted by the Mexican Lucha Libre wrestling based promotion World Wrestling Association (WWA) ...

( 1 time) ** WWF Light Heavyweight Championship ( 1 time) *

Pro Wrestling Noah (stylised as Pro Wrestling NOAH) is a Japanese professional wrestling promotion, founded in 2000 by former All Japan Pro Wrestling (AJPW) ace Mitsuharu Misawa after he had led a mass exodus in which 24 of AJPW's 26 contracted wrestlers left th ...

Differ Cup The Differ Cup is a cross-promotional professional wrestling tournament in Japan, contested among several teams of junior heavyweight tag teams, each typically representing a particular promotion. It was originally held biennially, first in 2003, t ...

(2003) – with Yossino *'' Pro Wrestling Illustrated'' **Ranked No. 12 of the top 500 singles wrestlers in the PWI 500 in 1997 * Pro Wrestling Revolution **PWR Heavyweight Championship (1 time, current) *'' Tokyo Sports'' ** Technique Award (1992) * Toryumon Mexico ** NWA International Junior Heavyweight Championship ( 2 time, current) **Yamaha Cup (2008) – with Yutaka Yoshie **Yamaha Cup (2012) – with Angélico **Suzuki Cup (2007) – with Kensuke Sasaki and

Marco Corleone Mark Robert Jindrak (born June 26, 1977) is an American businessman, former professional wrestler, and actor. He is best known for his appearances with World Championship Wrestling (WCW) and World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) as Mark Jindrak and ...

**Suzuki Cup (2008) – with

Alex Koslov Alex Sherman (born January 21, 1984) is a Moldovan-born retired professional wrestler and color commentator, currently working for New Japan Pro-Wrestling under the ring name Alex Koslov. Koslov has mainly worked in Mexico from 2005 until 2008 ...

and

* Universal Wrestling Association ** UWA World Middleweight Championship ( 5 times) ** UWA World Welterweight Championship ( 1 time) ** WWF Light Heavyweight Championship ( 1 time) *

** WCW Cruiserweight Championship (

) ** WCW World Television Championship (

) * Wrestle And Romance / Wrestle Association R **

(

) ** WAR World Six-Man Tag Team Championship ( 1 time) – with Nobutaka Araya and

Genichiro Tenryu , better known as is a retired Japanese professional wrestler and professional wrestling promoter. At age 13, he entered sumo wrestling and stayed there for 13 years, after which he turned to Western-style professional wrestling. "Tenryu" was hi ...

* Wrestling Observer Newsletter awards ** Best Wrestling Maneuver (1996) Running Liger bomb ** Most Underrated (2003) ** Wrestling Observer Newsletter Hall of Fame ( Class of 2004)

Luchas de Apuestas record

Notes

References

External links

Official blog
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Ultimo Dragon 1966 births IWGP Junior Heavyweight champions Japanese male professional wrestlers Japan–Mexico relations Living people Masked wrestlers NWA/WCW World Television Champions Professional wrestling executives Professional wrestling trainers Sportspeople from Nagoya