Founded February 23, 2006 Founder(s) Noriaki Kawabata | Headquarters Japan Owner(s) Koji Fujinaga | |
El Dorado was a Japanese professional wrestling promotion that was seen as the evolution of dragondoor. Most of El Dorado's wrestlers were graduates from Ultimo Dragon's Toryumon Gym, and thus the promotion was based on a Junior Heavyweight style with varying emphasis on high flying maneuvers, flashy technical grappling, and submissions.
Contents
History
El Dorado was announced on February 23, 2006 to replace dragondoor. Using most of the players from d2p, with some new faces, this project promised to expand on the "event" premise of d2p into a true organization.
Most of 2006 focused on a feud between Aagan-iisou and the upstart heel group STONED. The 2 sides feuded over who would get to recruit Takuya Sugawara. The feud never had a proper end, as what is now known as the El Dorado curse wreaked havoc on the promotion. Several long term injuries put everything into a holding pattern, and left very little focus.
March 2007 saw a complete reset. All existing alignments were scrapped, and 4 units would be formed in April 2007. Owashi, Kondo, YASSHI, and Sugawara were nominated as the leader position players. Each was free to use the time between then and the August Korakuen Hall show to recruit whoever they wanted for their unit. Any player not in a unit by then would have been fired.
The unit concept was mostly abandoned in 2008. They did continue to increase their activity. While they still do not hold proper tours, they went from once a month shows to a minimum of 2, sometimes up to 4. In a move that many see as the end of the "original" El Dorado, the August 24, 2008 show marked the last appearances of all members of the "Aagan Issou" group, as Shuji Kondo, "brother" YASSHI, Toru Owashi, Takuya Sugawara and Shogo Takagi all left the company. This move was supposed to be temporary. The thought was that the remaining El Dorado roster would be given a chance to shine on their own, and then when the Aagan members returned there would be renewed interest in the company.
But the lingering money troubles continued, and when an October Korakuen Hall show was canceled, the writing on the wall became too clear to ignore. Kondo officially signing with All Japan Pro Wrestling was another major blow. They completely stopped running shows Korakuen Hall, instead focusing on the FACE BASTA shows from Shinjuku FACE as the main battleground. In the end it was just not possible to continue the project, thus El Dorado ceased operations on December 15, 2008. Holding their final show in Tokyo's Shinjuku Face.
In February 2009 the promotion was revived under the name "Secret Base" and runs events monthly at its home arena, Warabi Isami City Wrestle Budokan.