10 WWE Signings That Didn't Live Up To The Hype

4. Ultimo Dragon

Ultimo Dragon SmackDown
WWE

You would be forgiven for failing to remember Ultimo Dragon's brief WWE run in 2003 and '04. The former WCW Cruiserweight and Television Champion signed with WWE in order to achieve two of his career goals, performing in Madison Square Garden and at WrestleMania, both of which he accomplished in his brief WWE tenure. It's unlikely that the Dragon envisaged himself tripping over in one of the most famous WrestleMania blunders of all time, but there we go.

Indeed, that is pretty much all anyone remembers of Dragon's WWE career. One of the most influential junior heavyweight professional wrestlers of all time entered the company with a huge amount of fanfare, but WWE's hopes of capitalising on the success of Rey Mysterio came to nought as Dragon failed to catch fire. One month after falling over inside MSG, Dragon asked for his release.

It is entirely possible that Ultimo Dragon's failure to live up to his hype in WWE may have influenced the company's approach to signing masked wrestlers over the next few years. It would be many years before another major masked star was signed, although I'll get to the chap in a moment.

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Contributor
Contributor

Born in the middle of Wales in the middle of the 1980's, John can't quite remember when he started watching wrestling but he has a terrible feeling that Dino Bravo was involved. Now living in Prague, John spends most of his time trying to work out how Tomohiro Ishii still stands upright. His favourite wrestler of all time is Dean Malenko, but really it is Repo Man. He is the author of 'An Illustrated History of Slavic Misery', the best book about the Slavic people that you haven't yet read. You can get that and others from www.poshlostbooks.com.