Yoshihiro Asai graduated from the NJPW Dojo in 1987 and attempted to make his niche in his home country, but the junior division still wasn’t highly respected by the Japanese crowd, with the IWGP Junior Heavyweight title being not even a year old when Asai debuted, and Junior stars Nobuhiko Takada and Shiro Koshinaka all standing at or over 6 feet tall, the 5 foot 8 Asai struggled to break out of the midcard pack, and left in 1993 after only wrestling with the promotion for 2 years.
Mexico
Dragon didn’t actually have a recorded match in Japan until five years after he graduated from the Dojo, mainly working in Mexico in the meantime.
He joined the UWA in Mexico, as well as Universal Lucha Libre, where he worked for his mentor and spiritual ancestor Gran Hamada, the first Japanese wrestler to make his way to Mexico and adopt the Lucha style.
He’d sign for CMLL, the oldest wrestling promotion in the world, in 1991. They’d soon give him the mask and the name of Ultimo Dragon. The initial gimmick was that he was the final student of Bruce Lee, thus making him the “Last Dragon,” hence Ultimo Dragon. The story didn’t last long, but the name and the mask have persisted for 25 years.
In CMLL, he’d win the NWA World Middleweight title twice, but would spend most of his CMLL career, which ran nearly consistently for 17 years, with 1996 being the only year between 1991 and 2008 that he didn’t wrestle in CMLL, when his only Mexican shows were for CMLL’s competition AAA in his only appearances for the current top Mexican promotion.
He’d wrestle a lot of multi man matches, but never won team gold in his time in Mexico.
WCW
Dragon made his WCW debut in 1996 under the management of Sonny Onoo, which instantly made him a sneaky Japanese heel because we’re wrasslin’, boys.
He was called “Ultimate Dragon” in the initial months of his WCW run, with the two commonly espoused explanations being that it was a move by the brass to make him more marketable and less confusing, as a Japanese guy with a Spanish name is wont to be. The other is that they simply misunderstood his name as Ultimate. They corrected it in December of 1996 after a few months of confusion.
He was put at the forefront of the Cruiserweight division alongside Rey Mysterio, with whom he had his initial feud for the WCW Cruiserweight title, which he couldn’t capture at first. He went back to Japan to wrestle for NJPW and back to Mexico for CMLL before returning to WCW with the J-Crown, which were 8 junior heavyweight titles from Japanese, Mexican, and American promotions. WWF was included, meaning technically the WWF Light Heavyweight title appeared on WCW TV a full year after Medusa trashed the Women’s title on Nitro. That might have had something to do with WWF withdrawing from the J Crown the next year.
He’d win the WCW Cruiserweight title from Dean Malenko at Starrcade 1996, meaning he held 8 titles simultaneously. He’d drop it back to Malenko he next month, just after losing the J Crown to Liger in Japan.
However, he’d soon move further up the ladder, dropping Onoo and turning face, then defeating Prince Iaukea for the TV title, then losing it to Steven Regal, winning it back, and then losing it to Alex Wright.
His last major angle in WCW saw him defeat Eddie Guererro for his final WCW Cruiserweight title, only to lose it to Juvi on the first WCW Thunder. He soon suffered an arm injury that required surgical repair, but the operation was botched and he suffered nerve damage in his arm, which he felt may end his career, and thus announced his retirement.
Toryumon
In 1997, Dragon opened a dojo in Japan with an accompanying dojo and dual nation promotion to showcase his talent. His first class included Dragon Kid, CIMA, and Magnum TOKYO, who would work for WCW in the late 90’s, and are now mainstays in Dragon Gate, which is the Toryumon promotion under a different name after Dragon left and took the trademarks with him.
He still wrestles for his Toryumon Mexico promotion, seperate from Dragon Gate.
Scores of Japanese and Mexican talent have trained under Dragon since he opened his dojo, with Kazuchika Okada most notably being initially trained in the Mexican dojo.
WWE
In 2002, Dragon got a second surgery in an attempt to repair the damage from the earlier one, and it was evidently a success, as he soon returned to working a large schedule.
Later that year, as he returned to the ring, he began negotiations with WWE. Dragon was interested in WWE because he wanted to fulfill two of his career dreams: Wrestle at Wrestlemania, and wrestle and Madison Square Garden. He was able to do both of those things on the same night, but we’ll get there.
WWE wanted Dragon because Rey Mysterio was quickly shooting up the popularity boards. He was every little kid’s favorite, ratings among the Latino crowd were skyrocketing for SmackDown, and replica masks couldn’t be kept in stock. So WWE saw Dragon as a Japanese Rey Mysterio, in terms of drawing, merch, and popularity.
His first appearances were around a month and a half of dark matches and house shows to acclimate him with the ring. He finally debuted against Shannon Moore in MSG on SmackDown, fulfilling the first of his two goals, and defeated Moore with likely the first Asai DDT anyone had seen in WWE.
He had a good feud with Rey Mysterio and competed in the US Title tourney, losing to eventual winner Eddie Guerrero.
As WWE was wont to do with the Cruiserweights back then, especially the non-American ones, they had no patience with him and quickly threw him aside. They didn’t wait for him to develop and get used to the WWE style, and put him with lesser talents on TV, but he regularly wrestled Tajiri, Rey, Brian Kendrick, and Jamie Noble on house shows and on Velocity and Heat.
He was taken off of main TV for months until the buildup to the Cruiserweight Open at Wrestlemania XX. Dragon was going to be able to put his other American goal in his back pocket.
At WM XX, when the participants were being introduced, Dragon tripped over his cape entering the stage from the back, and that became his most notable moment in WWE. At least he got to be at WrestleMania. And MSG twice. Better than a lot of guys treated better than him can say.
He asked for his release shortly after WrestleMania, and was granted it.
Return to Japan
Allegedly, there was some interest in bringing Dragon back to WWE, without his mask and under his real name, shortly after he left and had began tearing it up on NJPW’s Spring tour. Dragon unmasked for the occasion, but it never came, leaving the second most famous masked wrestler in Japan with no mask. He quickly took on the mantle of Tiger Mask as “The Tiger II,” but that didn’t last terribly long.
He soon opened a new Toryumon promotion called “dragondoor.” The entire basis of the company was Dragon’s identity crisis, with fake Dragons, fake Tiger Masks, and even a fake half Dragon half Tiger Mask, with the mask and costume split identically down the middle, facing each other in a convoluted attempt to get Dragon his mask back. There were only six shows run under the “dragondoor” banner, and Asai returned to being the Dragon soon after, as the mask issue had gotten so confusing by that point, fans just wanted to get the Dragon back and forgive this circus of insanity.
He’s since made his money as a freelancer and trainer at the Toryumon dojo. His main promotion has been the rapidly-declining All Japan, as he’s wrestled more for them since 2013 than all other promotions combined. He’s won the All Asia Tag titles and the World Junior Heavyweight title once each since he began in AJPW.
He’s also wrestled for Inoki’s odd MMA/Wrestling, shoot/work promotion Inoki Genome Federation, including a match in Pyongyang, North Korea.
His wasted WWE run aside, Dragon has one of the biggest signatures on the constitution of modern wrestling, especially the cruiserweight style.
