Bin Wang became the first athlete from China to have landed a World Wrestling Entertainment Inc (WWE) contract when he was signed up with a developmental contract in June this year.
At the Shanghai's Mercedes-Benz Arena, earlier this year, the historic announcement was made by the Paul "Triple H" Levesque, Executive Vice President of Talent, following which a live event was held in China in September, in which Wang fought superstar Bo Dallas.
John Cena also flew down to China when the contract was inked and also the $1.5b company partnered with Chinese online video provider PPTV to provide live streaming of its Raw and Smackdown programmes. The WWE has maintained that it saw the potential in Wang, who fights under the name - Tiang Bing, to become China's first WWE Superstar.
Wang has been featuring in WWE NXT, which has next generation superstars battling to make the cut into the main roster. Here are a few things which you might not have known about the Chinese WWE talent.
- Bin Wang was born on 14 April, 1991 and is a native of China's Anhui province.
- Wang weighs 104 kg and is approximately 6'3", which was also one of the major considerations of the sports-entertainment company when they signed the Chinese wrestler.
- He had been training under Japanese wrestling great - Antonio Inoki, who is also a WWE Hall of Famer, for two years until June 2016.
- Wang was not headlining events before he signed up with WWE but was just an undercard wrestler for Inoki's IGF promotion in Japan.
- WWE had a four-day tryout in Shanghai in June to identify potential next generation superstars from the Asian country. They capped off the week with the announcement of the signing.
- Several others, from different streams of combat sports were also handpicked out of which seven will be reportedly joining Wang in the next few weeks.
- Wang relocated to Florida in June, immediately after his signing, to begin training at the WWE Performance Center at Orlando.
Bin Wang at WWE Performance Center in Florida Reuters - To kickstart Wang's career, WWE also held its first live event in Shanghai, in which the Chinese wrestler defeated "RAW" superstar Bo Dallas, without much trouble.
- Wang lost his next three battles but came back strong at the NXT Tampa on 21 October against Patrick Clark and avenged his defeat against the American wrestler, who pinned him down at NXT Fort Pierce on 14 October.
- Wang's recent win came against Kona Reeves on 8 December at the NXT St. Petersburg Show.
- After losing five of his first seven fights, Wang has buckled up and won four of his last six in the NXT shows.
