You've seen the gimmick, maybe even two decades ago, but how much do you know about the winners of NWA TNA's first official match. Introducing the Flying Elvis'.
On June 19th 2002, NWA TNA's first ever event on pay per view, the show opened with a card reshuffle, as a parade of NWA Legends were highlighted. This is because in what would become a trend for TNA a crisis had to be averted. In a pre show match, a wrestler known as Cheex actually broke the ring. As the event opened, you can actually see the Harris twins among others just about completing the repairs. Had this not occurred, it's likely that the first segment of NWA total Non-stop action would have been the match featuring three wrestlers I'm about to tell you about, as former ECW world champion Jerry Lynn teamed with Low Ki, and a rookie AJ Styles, would face the Flying Elvis'.
In the early days of TNA, there were many characters what were clearly written to cater to the most stereotypical of 'Southern' audiences. It's almost like a New Yorker had his pen to the paper, and much of it would not be okay today, bro... You had the heel portrayal of the Rainbow Express, a clearly gay tag team drawing the cheapest of cheap heat, and on the other side of the coin you had Cowboy James Storm firing off cap guns, and even an appearance by Toby Keith who was plugging his song "Courtesy of the red white and blue", which admittedly I kind of liked back then, but the older I get just sounds silly enough to be in Team America: World Police. Getting back to the Flying Elvis gimmick, Jeff Jarrett on My World openly admitted that it was created to resonate with the Alabama crowd. Despite the silliness of the gimmick, lets look at the three men in the role, who they were, and what happend to them. This video isn't going to be about their Elvis runs, more their entire in ring careers.
Jimmy Yang
Let's start with maybe the most successful of the three, Jimmy Yang. Real name James Carlson Jun, Jimmy was born in California to a German Mother and a Korean Father, but was raised in Georgia. In a 2006 interview with Gerweck.net Jimmy confirmed this, and I defy you to find a more mixed heritage wrestler than that. Yang trained to wrestle at the WCW Power Plant, the most famous graduates of which include the Natural Born Thrillers, and a while before that Bill Goldberg. In an interview when asked to comment on his time in the WCW Powerplant Yang described it as Hell, and the hardest thing he has ever been through.
Jimmy would graduate to the WCW roster in early 2000, and would quickly be placed in the gimmick he would keep until the companies end. He would be part of a martial arts inspired trio known as the Jung Dragons, going by the name Yang. His team mates in the group would be Japanese born cruiserweight Kaz Hayashi, and strangely, West Virginia born masked wrestler Jamie-San. Jamie would later be known to some under his real name as former Ring of Honor World Champion James Gibson, but most like likely know him as former WWE Cruiserweight Champion Jamie Noble. It was a WCW gimmick in 2000, of course it had to turn weird somehow. The Jung Dragons were often a highlight of the opening matches of latter day WCW, especially when feuding with fellow cruiserweight trio 3 Count. Their most famous match was possible their trios ladder match against 3 Count, which some consider to be the lone highlight of Starrcade 2000. When WWE acquired WCW, Yang's was one of the many contracts the fed picked up, but Yang would be sent to train at Les Thatchers Heartland Wrestling Association, one of their developmental territories at the time. Unfortunately Jimmy would be released before actually wrestling for WWE.
According to Jimmy Yang himself in a 2022 shoot interview, the original idea for the Elvis gimmick came from Vince Russo, Triple H and Shawn Michaels. Which implies that this was first pitched in WWF, as Yang was in WCW while Shawn, Hunter and Russo were working in New York. Yang claims Vince McMahon shot the idea down, but when Russo went to TNA the idea was allowed to thrive. When Jimmy was first presented with the flying Elvis costume, in his own words he left the room refusing to wear it on national television. Eventually though he conceded, and grew to have fun with the gimmick.
Post WCW, Yang would be signed to WWE in 2003, and would appear as Akio, a yakuza style henchman for Tajiri on Smackdown, teaming with Ryan Sakoda. Yang claims that the name Akio was pitched by a WWE writer who looked in a Japanese phone book for a name and thought Akio was quote, 'the coolest one he found'. Yang would be released in July 2005, but less than a year later after a run in Ring of Honor he would be rehired by WWE, playing a vastly different character. After working a try out match as Akio and impressing WWE management, he would soon be repackaged as Jimmy Wang Yang. The character was based on Yang's Georgia upbringing despite his Asian heritage, and the conflicting perception people had of him. Yang was a popular, but fairly low card act until his second release in 2010. Despite Jimmy being a fixture in two major promotions, I couldn't find evidence of him winning any championships anywhere. He did however win two tournaments in All Japan Pro Wrestling
Nowadays Jimmy seems to has left the wrestling business full time, but still wrestles occasionally. At the time of me making this video for his last match he bizarrely popped up on a recent Pro Wrestling Noah event, losing a six man tag alongside fellow WWE Cruiserweight Super Crazy. Jimmy currently has a side job as well as wrestling where he owns and operates a camouflage clad 'redneck party bus', and a Pink 'Princess party bus' based in Ohio. Meanwhile, Jimmy's daughter has begun her wrestling career. Jazzy Yang has around 30 matches under her belt, the most high profile being at NWA Empowerrr, teaming Miranda Gordy, the daughter of another wrestling veteran, Terry Gordy. Maybe Jazzy will be able to avenge her Father by winning some championship Gold.
Sonni Siaki
Next we have the flying Elvis who was thought to have the most promise, Sonny Siaki. He was apparently a school friend of WCW wrestler Lodi, who advised him to try out for the WCW Power Plant, to which he was accepted. His training is credited to WWE Hall of Famer Mr. Wonderful Paul Orndorff. Sonny would wrestle on WCW Worldwide and Saturday night, even earning some wins, but would never wrestle on Nitro or Thunder. He would last wrestle for WCW in March of 2000, and would quit the company not liking how he was being treated.
From here Sonny would work independents, and would be booked by Dusty Rhodes' Turnbuckle Championship Wrestling, receiving further training from Dusty. When NWA TNA started Sonny was a day 1 hire, and following his time as a flying Elvis, would stick around as he was considered a future prospect. Back then fans used to compare him to the Rock based on his look and charisma, does that sound familiar? Sonny's career highlight may have been the December 11th 2002 TNA pay per view, where he would defeat Jerry Lynn for the X-Division championship. Sonny would hold the title for about 60 days before losing it to Kid Kash. One of Siaki's last notable matches came at the first TNA Lockdown event on April 24th 2005, when he and Apolo would face Lance Hoyt, now Lance Archer, and Chris Candido. This would be the match where Candido would suffer from a blood clot that would cost him his life.
In early 2006 Sonny would be signed to a WWE developmental contract. He would work for Deep South Wrestling, one of WWE's developmental territories before being moved to FCW when the Deep South relationship ended. in 2007 he would wrestle on two main roster house show tours, on for the Raw brand in February and a second in June for Smackdown, but would never wrestle a televised match for WWE. In September 2007 he would be released from WWE, and a few days later he would publicly comment that he had some personal family issued to deal with, and he was putting those first. In a 2013 interview with the Wrestling Epicenter podcast, Sonny elaborated that those issues pertained to an ill family member. It's not my place to go into details about that but I'll include the link of him talking about it in the description. Sonny would continue to wrestle on the independent scene, presumably having more control of his schedule than a WWE career would allow, but would have his last match in 2009 for Georgia based NWA Prime Time. Whats sad in a way about Sonny's career is that many had high hopes for him, but ultimately he stepped away from the ring for selfless reasons and that ought to be admired.
Jorge Estrada
Unfortunately, the third Elvis had the least of a wrestling career, Jorge Estrada. Born Jorge Moraza in Miami Florida, he would be trained in 99 by Dusty Rhodes, and like Sonny Siaki would wrestle for Dusty's Turnbuckle Championship Wrestling, which would have been his path to NWA TNA. In his time in TNA Jorge wrestled 26 matches, even challenging for the X-Division title once in a losing effort to Low-Ki. Jorge would leave TNA in march 2003 with his final match there being a victory over a villainous Elvis character called Disgraceland. Yep, TNA had a fourth Elvis, and technically three more in a weird period for Jeff Jarrett, Scott Hall and Kevin Nash later on.
Late into the making of this video I also discovered something I'd long forgotten, and thats that while still playing Elvis, Jorge briefly had a valet named Pricilla, clearly named after Elvis' ex-wife, but also as I know her better, star of the Naked Gun movies. According to her IMDB page Priscilla, real name Jodi Horn got into wrestling after meeting Jerry Lawler backstage at a show, and asking to be his Valet. She was part of TNA from their first event, where she was introduced as Miss Joni, one of many women who competed in a lingerie battle royal. After briefly managing Jorge and leaving him for Brian Christopher in November 2002, she seems to have left the wrestling business as best I can tell.
Around this time Jorge seemed to stop wrestling altogether, and there's not a lot of information out there as to what he is doing today. In the Jimmy Yang interview I mentioned earlier from 2006, Yang noted that he hadn't heard from Estrada, and also implied that Jorge was in trouble with the law, but didn't elaborate any further.
It seems though that Estrada achieved some high regard in his time in the ring, as in 2003 he achieved number 182 in the PWI 500. To put this in a modern context, had he placed there this year he would have been ranked between Dax Harwood and Tyler Bate, who are each fairly well respected. I know this isn't exactly a fair comparison given how much wrestling has changed over the past twenty years, but thats still an impressive number, and more when Jimmy Yang didn't even make the list that year.
So why after all these years are the Flying Elvis' still remembered. It feels like an act that should have fallen by the wayside years ago, and yet people still talk about the trio of Elvis impersonators in the early days of TNA. Part of it has to be the sheer gall of TNA to put them over two wrestlers who would become the first X-Division and tag team champions for the promotion, part of it has to be the sheer weirdness of an Asian from Georgia, a Samoan and a Floridian playing the King of Rock and Roll. That'll stick in the memory like a Japanese woman playing Freddy Mercury, or an American suddenly and for no real reason playing Elton John. Oh wait, those are real too. I guess my point is, given how I've been fairly critical of Vince Russo on this channel, fair play to him for creating a gimmick that is for once not remembered for reasons that would get him cancelled if he tried it today. Yes, I'm looking at you The Johnsons.
Sources:
Jimmy Yang Shoot Interview (2022): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FpKLlY9Qo4s
Jimmy Yang 2006 Interview: https://web.archive.org/web/20080623204251/http://www.gerweck.net/jimmyyanginterview.htm
Yang's bus and daughter: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GJ1iyp8MITU
Sony Siaki 2013 interview: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cHpml4InVbw
Estrada Indie footage: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BTb69O5YeDo
Joni Horn IMDB: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm1750442/?ref_=ttfc_fc_cl_t14
Disgraceland: https://www.cagematch.net/?id=1&nr=1408
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