Yoshihiro Asai

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Yoshihiro Asai

Statistics
Ring name(s)	Último Dragón Ultimate Dragon Asai Second Tiger
Billed height	168 cm (5 ft 6 in)
Billed weight	83 kg (185 lb)
Born	December 12, 1966 Nagoya, Aichi
Trained by	Gran Hamada
Debut	May 13, 1987 with Naoki Sano and Hirokazu Hata vs. Los Millonarios de la Muerte

Yoshihiro Asai (born December 12, 1966 in Nagoya, Aichi), better known as Último Dragón, is a Japanese professional wrestler. In addition to having trained in Japan, Asai learned to wrestle in the lucha libre style while working in Mexico. Asai is credited with popularizing the "Asai Moonsault", although, contrary to popular belief, he did not invent the move.

1 Career
2 Wrestling facts
- 2.1 Finishing and signature moves
3 Championships and accomplishments
4 External links

[edit] Career

Asai debuted in New Japan Pro Wrestling in 1987, but left the promotion along with his mentor, Gran Hamada, to help form Hamada's Universal Lucha Libre promotion. When the ULL went into decline, he moved to WAR.

Asai made his American debut in 1996 as Ultimate Dragon (a mistranslation of his Último Dragón ring name, which properly translates as "The Last Dragon") for the now defunct World Championship Wrestling promotion. He suffered an arm injury in 1999 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.

In 1997, Asai then became a trainer where he trained three classes of students, "Toryumon Japan", "Toryumon 2000 Project" (T2P) and "Toryumon X". His first class of students worked for WCW early in their career. 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, with Asai parting 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 and returned to wrestling. In the spring of 2003, he signed with World Wrestling Entertainment as the Último Dragón, seeking to realize his two lifelong goals of competing in Madison Square Garden and performing at WrestleMania. Asai made his WWE debut at Madison Square Garden on the June 26, 2003 episode of SmackDown! in a match with Shannon Moore, and wrestled there again at WrestleMania XX (where he had two bloopers; one being him slipping on his cape when coming out, and slipping on the turnbuckle). His contract expired in 2004, with Asai leaving on good terms. He has indicated that he may return maskless for another run in the WWE ^{[citation needed]}.

Since leaving the WWE, Asai has occasionally wrestled for the Consejo Mundial de Lucha Libre. In September 2005, he was reported to be in talks with Total Nonstop Action Wrestling about signing a contract. But the contract was never signed because Asai wanted a written contract, not a pay-per-appearance contract.