Post by Sephiroth on May 13, 2018 13:03:34 GMT -5
I was remembering this because of the thread about the WWF lightweight title-which was one of the belts Ultimo held to achieve the J Crown. It seems almost amazing how easy it is to forget that Ultimo Dragon did, in fact, have a run in WWE-and equally amazing at how much of a flop it was. They honestly seemed stoked to be bringing him back to the ring after his injuries had put him out for what was assumed to be the rest of his life; they did vignettes aplenty, gave him a grand entrance, and the announcers praised him to no end-for all of one or two matches before he suddenly vanished and was rarely seen on tv after. Which beggars the question why they gave up on him so swiftly when they had seemingly gone to quite a bit of effort to acquire him to begin with.
Now, I’ve heard a version that Vince was initially fired up to be bringing Ultimo to WWE, but that during the actual contract singing Ultimo freaked Vince out by showing up wearing his mask and acting the part of his ring character. But given what a cornball Vince is to begin with, I find that hard to swallow. My belief has long been that they brought him out of retirement purely with the intent of a dream match between him and Rey Mysterio, who was also relatively new to WWE at that time. The catching point was that they assumed he would perform the same style he had at his prime in WCW, only to find out he was using a more ground based, martial arts kind of style because his various injuries had left him unable to pull off the kind of high flying acrobatics he once had been known for. This pretty much kaiboshed the enthusiasm for a Rey/Dragon match, and Ultimo got shunted into the background for it. But at least Ultimo got what he really wanted out of the deal; to say he had worked for WWE and thus every major promotion on the planet, and also to say he had worked at Madison Square Garden-and appear at Wrestlemania to boot. But it seems like such a pity the highlight of his WWE run was him tripping on his own cape during his Wrestlemania entrance.
Now, I’ve heard a version that Vince was initially fired up to be bringing Ultimo to WWE, but that during the actual contract singing Ultimo freaked Vince out by showing up wearing his mask and acting the part of his ring character. But given what a cornball Vince is to begin with, I find that hard to swallow. My belief has long been that they brought him out of retirement purely with the intent of a dream match between him and Rey Mysterio, who was also relatively new to WWE at that time. The catching point was that they assumed he would perform the same style he had at his prime in WCW, only to find out he was using a more ground based, martial arts kind of style because his various injuries had left him unable to pull off the kind of high flying acrobatics he once had been known for. This pretty much kaiboshed the enthusiasm for a Rey/Dragon match, and Ultimo got shunted into the background for it. But at least Ultimo got what he really wanted out of the deal; to say he had worked for WWE and thus every major promotion on the planet, and also to say he had worked at Madison Square Garden-and appear at Wrestlemania to boot. But it seems like such a pity the highlight of his WWE run was him tripping on his own cape during his Wrestlemania entrance.
