Billed height 1.88 m (6 ft 2 in) Trained by Kintaro Ohki Name Lee Wang-pyo | Debut 1975 Billed weight 120 Kg (264 Ib) | |
Super Dragon Lee Wang Pyo is a South Korean professional wrestler and a martial artist.
Contents
- Biography
- Career in professional wrestling
- Career in MMA
- Filmography
- In wrestling
- Championships and accomplishments
- References
In professional wrestling he is the promoter of the top national promotion, World Wrestling Association; during the 1980s and the 1990s he has been the babyface and the ace of that promotion, which was called at the time Korean Wrestling Association, a position he still held nowadays.
Therefore he is one of the most famous professional wrestler in Korean wrestling history and he has been defined one of the biggest stars ever in Asian wrestling too; he has even been praised by Lou Thesz for his wrestling skills.
In MMA he is notorious especially for being the creator of the martial art known as gyeokgido.
Biography
He was born in 1956 in a small village in South Chungcheong province in South Korea, the second of four children.
He was notable for his tall stature since young age.
In elementary school, he was stabbed by an upperclassman. When interviewed about this fact, Lee claimed "The upperclassman couldn’t beat me by force, so he used cowardly means to win".
He said in an interview that it was in third grade that he decided to practice professional wrestling, inspired by a match involving his future master Kim II that he saw on television.
In 1975 he began training in professional wrestling in a wrestling gym run by Kim Il: Kim Il notice Lee’s talent and started to personally train the young wrestler.
Career in professional wrestling
In 1975 he debuted in the Korean Wrestling Association (KWA), which was founded in 1961 by his master Kim II: Lee is now considered his master's successor as the top face of the promotion and his top student. The promotion was and still is the top professional wrestling promotion in Korea.
During his career he has wrestled mainly in Korea and Japan: particularly, in 1978 Lee wrestled at the Japan-Korea Triple Competitions, a series of professional wrestling shows jointly organised by the Japanese International Wrestling Enterprise and by the KWA.
In 1985 he became the promoter of KWA, also known as Korean Pro-Wrestling Association (KPWA).
In 1993 he won in the KPWA the GWF World Heavyweight Championship and on December 13, 1999 he lost with No Ji Sim to Jason The Terrible and One Man Gang a match for the GWF World Tag Championship.
In 2000 he changes KPWA name to World Wrestling Association: he claimed ties to the original World Wrestling Association.
Therefore he proceeded to win the revamped version of the WWA world title in 2000 defeating Kurgan.
The KWA/KWPA was affiliated with National Wrestling Alliance till 1983; with Wang Pyo as the promoter, the "new" WWA rejoined NWA using NWA Korea as an alternative name for the promotion, but still retaining the WWA name.
On the January 23, 2003 he, along with Kim II, attended the WWE Raw show in Seoul.
On March 21, 2003 in Seoul he defeated Honky Tonk Man in a match for the WWA world title before 1,500 fans: the match was part of a feud they were having that year.
In 2008 he defeated cleanly Kurt Angle in a WWA show in Korea.
On November 12, 2008 he defeated Bob Sapp in a match for the WWA world title, which was booked as a MMA style one, with an armbar submission. The match took place at a Forever Hero event at the Olympic Park stadium in Seoul.
On October 26, 2009, at his second reign, he lost his title in a rematch to Bob Sapp at the Olympic Stadium in Seoul.
Career in MMA
He studied different martial art sports, including taekwondo, judo and hapkido.
Lee created a legitimate martial art based on his repertoire of wrestling moves, called gyeokgido.
He is a member and a Grand Master Of Korean Military Arts of Korean Martial Arts Instructors Association.
Filmography
He is well known in South Korea and he has appeared in various media.