From WWF Obscurity: What the hell is a Kwang?!?!?

I do not intend for my “From WWF Obscurity” posts to encroach on Wrestlecrap. I’m merely picking random things that I remember and writing about them. It just so happens that a lot of these random things that pop into my head, are Wrestlecrap.

Here’s another entry from the mid 90s.

What did WWF and Vince McMahon do when they signed Puerto Rican wrestling superstar, Savio Vega, to a WWF contract?

That’s right! They put him under a mask and gave him an Asian gimmick.

Enter Kwang. [Video of his debut]

Around this time, lots of far fetched things were happening, from the appearance of a wrestler named Adam Bomb, whose gimmick was that he was an atomic bomb, to Bob Backlund running for president.

But back to Kwang.

Kwang is an Asian name, right? It certainly sounds it. [That’s not my idea; that’s what I think was going through the minds of the creative team members]

Like any Asian heel, Kwang spit foreign substances into his opponents’ eyes, was billed to be larger than life, and was not allowed to speak. He was managed by Harvey Whippleman who was one of the last managers of that era.

Never mind that Kwang had a build heavier than any Asian person in the history of professional wrestling (aside from Yokozuna, who wrestled as a sumo). Never mind that Kwang had a complexion darker than any Asian person ever involved in professional wrestling.

He was a ninja.

Despite a whole lot of hype and some TV squash matches against jobbers, this, already at the time, dated gimmick didn’t get over, even though he was given the same finishing maneuver Shawn Michaels made famous, the super kick, and even whipped the opponent into the ropes before hitting it for more impact. WWF quickly canned the gimmick after using Kwang to get some of the midcard faces over.

I’m pretty sure Kwang didn’t even make it to a PPV. (I don’t remember any matches nor can I find any evidence of such matches online)

But he did make it into a video game. WWF Raw for Sega 32X.

He was actually a hidden character. Yes I did own the game. I also owned the Sega Genesis version of the game. The main difference between the two games was the presence of Kwang, who didn’t even have his own moves and was just given other wrestlers’ finishers. So was it worth it to have both versions? No, because Kwang sucked, in the game, and in real life.

WWF finally came to their senses and repackaged Kwang as Savio Vega, who went on to never win a title in the WWF. He stayed a lower midcarder for the remainder of his WWE tenure.

Fun fact: Savio Vega was the first recipient of the Stone Cold Stunner.