Kazuharu Sonoda ( 薗田 一治 , Sonoda Kazuharu , September 16, 1956 – November 28, 1987) also known under the ring names Haru Sonoda ( ハル 薗田 ) and Magic Dragon ( マジック・ドラゴン , Majikku Doragon ) , was a Japanese professional wrestler. He was a former NWA Western States Tag Team Champion , NWA/WWC North American Tag Team Champion with Mitsu Ishikawa and the WCCW All Asia Tag Team Championship with the Great Kabuki in 1982.
31-554: Magic Dragon can refer to: Kazuharu Sonoda (1956-1987), a Japanese professional wrestler using the ring name "Magic Dragon" "Magic Dragon", a song on the album Agent Orange by the thrash metal band Sodom Piff the Magic Dragon (born 1980), a magician and comedian from the United Kingdom " Puff, the Magic Dragon ", a 1963 song by Peter, Paul and Mary A microlift glider that
62-552: A heart attack later that year after a match versus Ox Baker in Savannah, Georgia . The death set off some internal problems, with Ray's widow Ann, who had worked closely with Ray and expected to get her share of the promotion being shut out in favor of Bill Watts , with the promotion being renamed "Mid-South Sports." Ann Gunkel decided to start her own promotion outside of the National Wrestling Alliance , which she named
93-501: A match booker , who also wrestled as Ole Anderson . This move set the stage for an important move in wrestling history, involving another regional promoter: Vince McMahon . In July 1984, the Brisco brothers sold their stock in GCW to McMahon for $ 900,000. In return McMahon received GCW's television time slots on WTBS, which McMahon then claimed for his WWF, which was in the midst of expanding into
124-607: A national promotion. McMahon also guaranteed jobs with the WWF for the Briscos; Gerald Brisco remained with the WWF/WWE for decades before retiring in 2009. After working out a few prior commitments, Georgia Championship Wrestling ceased to exist. GCW announcer Freddie Miller was the only member of the original GCW on-air cast who neither quit in protest nor was replaced by the new owner. McMahon had underestimated two major factors, however. The first
155-580: Is an advancement from the basic Carbon Dragon design A nickname for the Douglas AC-47 Spooky gunship See also [ edit ] [REDACTED] Search for "magic dragon" on Misplaced Pages. Stuff the Magic Dragon , the team mascot for the Orlando Magic All pages with titles beginning with Magic Dragon All pages with titles containing Magic Dragon Magic (disambiguation) Dragon (disambiguation) Puff
186-682: Is different from Wikidata All article disambiguation pages All disambiguation pages Kazuharu Sonoda Sonoda trained with the All Japan Pro Wrestling dojo for his wrestling debut, but actually made his in ring debut as a referee in late 1974 when one of the regular AJPW referees was sick and needed a replacement. On January 15, 1975, he finally made his professional wrestling debut, working under his real name early on in his career. In 1979 Sonoda and Mitsu Ishikawa traveled to North America to further their training and experience different styles of wrestling. The two worked for
217-631: The NWA Western States Tag Team Championship in 1980 and then later lost them to the team of Larry Lane and Ted Heath. When the Western States territory closed the team of Sonoda and Ishikawa split up, with Sonoda moving on to the Georgia Championship Wrestling (GCW) where he worked as "Professor" Sonoda. In 1981 he returned to Texas, working for Fritz Von Erich 's World Class Championship Wrestling (WCCW) as
248-617: The Puerto Rico based World Wrestling Council (WWC) in 1979, winning the WWC North American Tag Team Championship in a tournament. The duo held the championship for 35 days, before losing the championship to WWC regulars Ciclón Negro and Huracán Castillo. After the stay in Puerto Rico the team moved on to Texas, working for an extended time for NWA Western States out of Houston, Texas . Sonoda and Ishikawa won
279-663: The masked wrestling character "Magic Dragon". In WCCW he was managed by Gary Hart and teamed up with the Great Kabuki on a regular basis. At the Fritz Von Erich Retirement Show Magic Dragon and Great Kabuki defeated David and Kevin Von Erich to win a championship billed as the "All Asian Tag Team Championship", which was not the AJPW version of the title , but a title promoter Fritz Von Erich had created for
310-406: The "All-South Wrestling Alliance." Mid-South Sports's longterm prospects were not good at that point, most of their wrestlers had gone with Ann, and Ann's promotion had gotten Mid-South's television time slot, though both promotions aired on WTCG. (Ted Turner and Ann Gunkel had both attended Brown University and were rumored to be romantically involved.) After two years of strife, a trouble-shooter
341-543: The AJPW Dojo in the 1970s. Georgia Championship Wrestling Georgia Championship Wrestling is an American professional wrestling promotion based in Atlanta , Georgia . The promotion was affiliated with what had been the world's top sanctioning body of championship titles for decades before, the National Wrestling Alliance (NWA) , and ran live wrestling shows throughout its geographic "territory" of Georgia. The company
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#1732844627729372-480: The Magic Dragon (disambiguation) Topics referred to by the same term [REDACTED] This disambiguation page lists articles associated with the title Magic Dragon . If an internal link led you here, you may wish to change the link to point directly to the intended article. Retrieved from " https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Magic_Dragon&oldid=1118688670 " Category : Disambiguation pages Hidden categories: Short description
403-551: The Universal Wrestling Federation) in 1987. When JCP ran into financial difficulty, Turner Broadcasting took over the promotion in November 1988 to keep the programming on its network, naming the new subsidiary World Championship Wrestling (WCW) after the title of its then-flagship program. In 2001, the WWF purchased the assets and trademarks belonging to WCW, including the entire tape libraries of GCW and JCP. While
434-529: The WWF-produced series, which garnered lower ratings than previously, Turner began giving time slots to other southern wrestling promotions. Ole Anderson continued to operate on a smaller scale in the territory, promoting Championship Wrestling from Georgia out of Atlanta, which briefly aired on TBS Saturday mornings. Bill Watts' Mid-South Wrestling , which operated in Oklahoma, Arkansas, Louisiana, and Mississippi,
465-538: The occasion as a means to make the storyline between the two teams more prestigious. On August 15, 1982, in one of the featured bouts on the August Wrestling Star Wars show the Von Erich brothers regained the championships, which were summarily forgotten once the storyline between the two teams ended. During that period of time, Sonoda would at times actually portray the Great Kabuki character, playing
496-416: The part when the original Kabuki was double booked for appearance. Mimicking Kabuki's mannerisms, with his face pained and hair covering his face it was never noticed that it was not the original Kabuki playing the part. Sonoda, still working as "Magic Dragon" returned to AJPW in 1984. In September Magic Dragon teamed up with "Ultra Seven" to compete in the first ever AJPW Junior Tag League . The duo defeated
527-540: The programming offered by other territories, including the Northeast-based World Wrestling Federation (WWF, now WWE ). GCW's main show, which aired on Saturday evenings, was complemented with a Sunday evening edition . Many of the NWA's regional promoters were unhappy, but Barnett claimed since he was only using Georgia-based wrestlers, that there was no harm. Whether or not Barnett was in fact taking
558-491: The promotion national is a matter of dispute. Some wrestlers, such as Roddy Piper , say that he was in fact doing so, but was prevented by fears of crossing organized crime figures involved with the sport. Throughout the 1970s, Georgia Championship Wrestling was one of the main shows that kept the Superstation alive. In 1982, Georgia Championship Wrestling changed its main programming name to World Championship Wrestling at
589-556: The renamed Georgia Championship Wrestling became the first television program produced by an NWA-affiliated promotion to be broadcast nationally. This program was hosted by Gordon Solie and was recorded in the studios of WTCG in Midtown Atlanta . Shows were taped before a small (yet enthusiastic), live in-studio audience, as were most professional wrestling TV shows of that era. The show featured wrestling matches, plus melodramatic monologues and inter-character confrontations—similar to
620-475: The request of Ted Turner. GCW also expanded its reach into parts of Ohio and Michigan which were considered "open territory" at the time. A January 1983 show in Dayton, Ohio, was the first show held in that city in five years. A power struggle in late 1983 forced Barnett to sell most of his shares in GCW to a consortium consisting of wrestlers and brothers Jack Brisco and Gerald Brisco ; Paul Jones; and Al Rogowski,
651-463: The rest of his life, and visibly cried in the ring during his memorial show. His niece, Yukari Ishikura (石倉 由加利 Ishikura Yukari ), was also a professional wrestler. She wrestled for Frontier Martial-Arts Wrestling . In 2007 and 2008 Pro Wrestling NOAH held the "Mauritius Cup" tournament in honor of Sonoda. In November 2016, Atsushi Onita and Masanobu Fuchi dedicated their All Asia Tag Team Championship win to Sonoda, whom they trained together in
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#1732844627729682-408: The team of Babyface and Fishman , but lost to every other team in the tournament. On June 5, 1985, Magic Dragon was unmasked after he lost a match to Kuniaki Kobayashi , allowing him to work as "Haru Sonoda" after the mask loss. Sonoda married Mayumi Sonoda ( 薗田 真弓 , Sonoda Mayumi ) in early November, 1987 and set off on their honeymoon on November 28, 1987, to South Africa . South Africa
713-465: The then-brand-new Omni Coliseum . Secondly, it switched its television outlet from its original home, then- ABC -affiliated WQXI-TV (now WXIA-TV ) to UHF independent station WTCG, then owned by Ted Turner . WTCG would become a satellite-distributed superstation in 1976, and change its call letters to WTBS in 1979, ultimately becoming the national TBS cable channel. The new television deal would be one of Gunkel's last decisions. Ray Gunkel died of
744-629: Was also known for its self-titled TV program , which aired on Atlanta-based superstation WTBS from the 1970s until 1984 when its timeslot was purchased by the World Wrestling Federation . Georgia Championship Wrestling was formed in Atlanta in 1944 by promoter Paul Jones (retired wrestler Andrew Lutzi, not Paul Frederik who later was given the name) as ABC Booking. ABC held its matches at Atlanta's Municipal Auditorium on Friday evenings. Jones operated ABC for thirty years until his retirement in 1974, though from about 1970 until 1972 he
775-454: Was assisted by his booker Ray Gunkel . Jones was so infirm by this time (he died in 1988) that Gunkel effectively ran the promotion. On December 25, 1971, Georgia Championship Wrestling made its television debut with a special Christmas program. Beginning in late January 1972 the promotion's regular series, Big Time Wrestling , began airing on Saturday afternoons on WQXI-TV in Atlanta; the show
806-477: Was called in: Jim Barnett , who had owned promotions in Indiana , Michigan , Ohio , Colorado and Australia . (The Australian promotion was called World Championship Wrestling .) At this point, Ann's promotion went downhill, being locked out of arena dates, with wrestlers defecting to Mid-South, and finally Ann Gunkel's All-South Wrestling Alliance folded in 1974. When WTCG became distributed via satellite in 1976,
837-595: Was chosen as the location as Tiger Jeet Singh was promoting a show in the country and Giant Baba offered to fly Sonoda to compete on the show and have his honeymoon on the same trip. Sonada and his wife were passengers on the South African Airways Flight 295 that crashed near the island of Mauritius after a fire on board the plane. At the time of his death, Sonoda was training Kenta Kobashi , who debuted nearly three months after his death. Giant Baba has said he regretted sending Sonoda to South Africa for
868-592: Was given the Sunday evening time slot previously used by GCW that the WWF did not take. Eventually, on March 30, 1985, McMahon sold the Saturday night time slot to Jim Crockett, Jr. , a Charlotte, North Carolina –based promoter who ran NWA-branded shows in the Mid-Atlantic states. Jim Crockett Promotions took over production of the Saturday television show using the same set. JCP purchased Watts's promotion (by then renamed
899-421: Was mainly used as a re-cap show, featuring matches which had previously aired on the WWF's main programming such as WWF Championship Wrestling and WWF All-Star Wrestling . This angered WTBS owner Ted Turner, who believed McMahon reneged on a promise to have live matches originating from Turner Broadcasting System 's Atlanta studios. As a result of dissatisfaction by the audience and Ted Turner himself with
930-468: Was recorded for later broadcast over WJBF in Augusta and WTOC-TV in Savannah , stations located in two of GCW's major cities. Big Time Wrestling was hosted by Ed Capral, and featured ring announcer Charlie Harben and referee Leo Garibaldi, and included interviews with wrestlers pertaining to their upcoming matches. The promotion underwent some big changes in 1972. Firstly, it started promoting matches at
961-505: Was the differences in tastes between fanbases of different geographical regions. The WWF's style of wrestling sharply differed from that of GCW, with the WWF featuring cartoonish characters and storylines and squash matches and GCW featuring more athletic competition. Secondly, Southerners resented the symbolism of a " Yankee " company coming down from the North and "taking over" their wrestling. In addition, WWF World Championship Wrestling