{"id":124848,"date":"2024-06-11T08:00:39","date_gmt":"2024-06-11T12:00:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/?p=124848"},"modified":"2024-06-11T01:12:02","modified_gmt":"2024-06-11T05:12:02","slug":"how-ultimo-dragon-became-a-forbidden-door-icon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/2024\/06\/11\/how-ultimo-dragon-became-a-forbidden-door-icon\/","title":{"rendered":"How Ultimo Dragon Became a Forbidden Door Icon"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">With working relationships in <strong>WWE<\/strong> and <strong>TNA<\/strong> as well as <strong>NJPW<\/strong> and <strong>AEW<\/strong>. The wrestling universe is walking through the Forbidden Door or Prohibited Portal. This term was coined in the 21<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">st<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> century but has been an integral part of wrestling history. Long before AEW and NJPW. There was one time a WWE Belt almost showed up on a <strong>WCW<\/strong> PPV event.<\/span><\/p>\n<h3><b>The WWE Light Heavyweight Title<\/b><\/h3>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">Learned recently that when Ultimo Dragon held the J-Crown, one of the titles was the WWF Light Heavyweight Championship, meaning that he was technically a WWF and WCW champion while those two companies were separate. <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/67FiV2vf7w\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">pic.twitter.com\/67FiV2vf7w<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Brad Smith (@bradsmithVR) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/bradsmithVR\/status\/1508223776479191041?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">March 27, 2022<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The WWE Universe states that official title reigns began in 1997. This however isn\u2019t the case. The original Light Heavyweight title was cross-promoted between WWE and the <strong>Universal Wrestling Association<\/strong> out of Mexico. The title was announced in 1981 and was defended across both promotions during this time.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The cross-brand promotion would continue throughout the 1980\u2019s. Starting in the 90\u2019s <strong>Michinoku Pro Wrestling<\/strong> as well as <strong>New Japan Pro Wrestling<\/strong> would start booking the title for their promotions.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In the summer of 1996 <strong>Antonio Inoki<\/strong> had a plan to add some stability to the world of the light heavyweight division. He planned a massive tournament featuring 8 different promotions and champions. The J-Crown Octuple Unified Championship was the outcome.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Over a year the titles were all defended across their respective brands, excluding WWE. Ultimo Dragon and special guest Sonny Ono, a former J-Crown Champion sat down with Lee Walker of <a href=\"https:\/\/youtu.be\/gX8Ttjy8KOM?si=vaIoiakkuSUUsDYg\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Perched on the Top Rope<\/a>. He had this to say.<\/span><\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<h4 style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong><em>\u201cThis was the very first time there were eight champions and there was an eight-man championship. The difficulty was defeating all those companies and company champions. So having politics, you can imagine, To be able to do that was amazing. Even now, I want to thank everyone who gave me the ability to compete in that tournament. \u201c\u00a0 <\/em><\/strong><\/h4>\n<h4 style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong><em>&#8211; Ultimo Dragon<\/em><\/strong><\/h4>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The idea of having to book eight champions and eight promotions seems like a nightmare for a promoter. NJPW was successful in executing the J-Cup in unison with the G1 Climax tournament that same year.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<h3><b>Ultimo Dragon Wins It All and Shows Up in WCW<\/b><\/h3>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">Ultimo Dragon STRAPPED tf up at WCW Starrcade 1996:<\/p>\n<p>J-Crown Champion (British Commonwealth, IWGP Jr, NWA World Jr\/World Welterweight, UWA World Jr, WAR Intnl Jr, WWA World Jr Light Heavyweight, &amp; WWF Light Heavyweight) &amp; also NWA World Middleweight Champ. <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/g1n8cm0rzT\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">pic.twitter.com\/g1n8cm0rzT<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 WrassleWave (@WrassleWave) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/WrassleWave\/status\/1777718628479127968?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">April 9, 2024<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><strong>The Great Sasuke<\/strong> was the inaugural champion but over a year the J-Cup Crown would change hands. During his time in the tournament <strong>Ultimo Dragon<\/strong> was the WAR International Junior Heavyweight Champion. This earned him the spot. He would even go on to win the championship at one point and adorn all eight titles.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">During his run as J-Cup Champion Ultimo Dragon had scheduled appearances per his WCW contract. This included a J-Cup Octuple Championship vs WCW Cruiserweight championship match, winner takes all. Ultimo Dragon was scheduled to face Dean Malenko at the Starrcade event in 1996.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Leading up to Starrcade Ultimo Dragon would appear on WCW Nitro with his eight world titles. This included the WWE Light Heavyweight title. When asked why the announcers didn\u2019t give the names of the belts, he simply said \u201cI doubt they knew them.\u201d When asked if Dragon ever wore the WWE title on WCW TV he said,<\/span><\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<h4 style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong><em>\u201cYeah of course, we\u2019ve all seen it. It was shown on WCW TV of course. I\u2019m not particularly sure of the dates, but I had eight belts and Dean had the WCW Cruiserweight. Winner takes all.\u201d <\/em><\/strong><\/h4>\n<h4 style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong><em>&#8211; Ultimo Dragon<\/em><\/strong><\/h4>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">After a few appearances on live TV WCW finally received a call from the WWE. Dragon recalls \u201cthe day before (Starrcade) we get a call from the WWE, they say, you can do that, but not on their (WCW) TV\u201d Ultimately pulling the WWE title off of Starrcade.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Although it didn\u2019t make it to the PPV Ultimo Dragon and the\u00a0 J-Crown Octuple Unified Championship kicked in the forbidden door and prohibited portal.<\/span><\/p>\n<h3>More From LWOS Pro Wrestling<\/h3>\n<p><em>Header photo \u2013 WWE \u2013 Stay tuned to the <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/\" target=\"_self\">Last Word on Pro Wrestling<\/a>\u00a0for more on this and other stories from around the world of wrestling, as they develop. You can always count on LWOPW to be on top of the major news in the wrestling world, as well as to provide you with analysis, previews, videos, interviews, and editorials on the wrestling world.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>With working relationships in WWE and TNA as well as NJPW and AEW. The wrestling universe is walking through the Forbidden Door or Prohibited Portal. This term was coined in the 21st century but has been an integral part of wrestling history. Long before AEW and NJPW. There was one time a WWE Belt almost [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4168,"featured_media":124858,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2,7205,6975,14,2192,4],"tags":[2368,2540,250],"class_list":["post-124848","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","category-history","category-international-wrestling","category-njpw","category-wrestling","category-wwe","tag-super-j-cup","tag-ultimo-dragon","tag-wcw"],"modified_by":"Michael Joseph Sugue, Manager","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/124848","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4168"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=124848"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/124848\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/124858"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=124848"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=124848"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=124848"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}