Sasuke did make a couple of appearances for WWE, but it could (and should) have been a whole lot more. After blowing everyone away with their work in a frenetic six-man tag match at ECW's first ever pay-per-view, Barely Legal, WWE snapped up Sasuke and one of his opponents that night, Taka Michinoku and booked them against one another for their late July PPV (Canadian Stampede). Sasuke was going to be a central figure in WWE's Light Heavyweight division. Unfortunately, his ego got in the way of that. Instead of waiting to see how things developed, Sasuke held a press conference in Japan where he told the media that he was going to be the first WWF Light Heavyweight Champion. WWE had not agreed to this and were furious at Sasuke for claiming as much. Then, adding to Sasuke's woes, he was upstaged by Taka in their big PPV clash. WWE didn't want to deal with Sasuke, so they signed Michinoku instead, and the masked man left the promotion to go back and work in Japan as well as for ECW a handful of times. It's unfortunate that the Sasuke deal fell through, as he was exactly the type of exciting performer that WWE could have used to counteract the Ultimo Dragons and Rey Mysterios of WCW. Instead of, y'know, Scott Putski and Brian Christopher or something...
