10 Wrestlers With Surprisingly Successful Japanese Careers

Steve 'Dr. Death' Williams was an extraordinarily successful American collegiate athlete. Williams was a five-time All American at the University of Oklahoma, four times for amateur wrestling and once for football. You would think this kind of background would make Williams a slam dunk professional wrestling star like Brock Lesnar, Shelton Benjamin, Kurt Angle or Dolph Ziggler.

However, his career in North America did not live up to expectations despite being an enormous star overseas in Japan.

Williams began his career in Japan in the early 90s and immediately became a tag team sensation. Teaming with Terry Gordy as the Miracle Violence Connection (more on Gordy later) they would win the World Tag Team Championships in All Japan a record five times together. Throughout the course of his career he would hold the World Tag belts 8 times. In addition to the tag team titles he participated in thee five-star matches, including one match of the year in 1996 tagging with Johnny Ace against Mitsuharu Misawa and Jun Akiyama in the Tokyo Dome.

The apex of his Japanese run was winning the Triple Crown Championship from Misawa, a rare honour for a Gaijin wrestler.

Dr. Death also had a lengthy and at times infamous run in North America. Let's be clear; the early part of Williams' North American career was successful as he won numerous tag titles in WCW and held titles in UWF and NWA. Unfortunately, he back-ended this success and his success in Japan in an embarrassing effort in WWE's 'Brawl for All', a tournament set up for him to win.

On top of this he rounded out his career in North America with a run as 'Oklahoma', part of a shameful WCW parody of his good friend Jim Ross. Most choose to look at his sterling career in Japan, rather than his later North American exploits.