Tiger Ali Singh made a comeback to the field of professional wrestling in Japan

Nov. 30, 2008
Gary Singh

Tiger Ali Singh (Tiger Jeet Singh Jr.) recently made a comeback to the field of professional wrestling in Japan. After a eight year hiatus from the sport because of the injury he suffered back in 2001 (he suffered three consecutive concussions within a nine year) during his WWE wrestling career.

His father, Tiger Jeet Singh Sr. said, with God's grace his return was triumphant, where we both, father and son, won the wrestling tag team tournament recently held in Tokyo, Japan.

In the early month of Oct., I and my wife spent 4-5 hours with whole family of Tiger Jeet Singh. Mick was in good spirit and preparing himeself for wrestling trip in Japan. I was very impressed because he was totally honest with himself, behave with integrity and dare to be open, for there is nothing to hide.

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Nov. 18, 2008, He wrote to Gary Singh:

Dear Uncle,

I am presently on tour in Japan with my father. It will be very difficult for me to correspond with you over the next serveral months due to my very hectic schedule. From Japan I am scheduled to fly to Dubai for one week........a Prince has sponsored my fight over there. After Dubai I will return to Japan, where I`ll be for two weeks. Upon completion of Japan I will then fly to South Africa.

Japan time is approximately 14 hours ahead of Toronto time. If you need to reach me by phone, then please keep the time difference in mind and kindly note that for the moment I can be reached on my Japanese phone number of ------.

God Bless

He wrote to Gary's associate Company in India

Dear Uncle,

Being the eldest son of wrestling legend Tiger Jeet Singh and blessed by the great Mohammad Ali during my WWE (World Wrestling Entertainment) tenure to carry on his name, I humbly accepted the noble responsibility and was promoted throughout the world with the professional stage name of 'Tiger Ali Singh'. Unfortunately my WWE career was prematurely cut short back in December 2001 after I sustained my third concussion within a nine month period while wrestling outdoor in Puerto Rico during a monsoon rain storm.

I sincerely believe I was put on earth for one mission: to bring joy to the youth of the world and make a difference in their lives. At the time of my accident I believe that I was robbed of that opportunity, but with God's grace, some six to seven years later I now find myself once again blessed with the health and experience to continue on with the dreams of both my father and Mohammad Ali.

To demonstrate commitment to my mission, I've recently turned down lucrative offers to return back to the WWE and in addition have declined similar proposals from TNA Wrestling as well as the UFC (Ultimate Fighting Championship).

Throughout these many years my father has continually kept me apprised of the dire situation of how drugs and alcohol have plagued our youth in India. We all know about the negative impacts these evils hold throughout the entire world society in general, however we believe "Rome wasn't built in one day" and with that philosophy, we wanted to start our 'anti-drug' campaign in India. For this to occur and to have any chance of making a difference throughout the youth, we must first be able to find a vehicle that will harness their attention long enough to have any full and meaningful impact. In our opinion there is no better avenue at the moment then the highly popular wrestling entertainment.

Unlike our competitors situated within the United States, we are in a position to curtail our future live events and programming directly for our viewing audience in India and South Asia by situating our central operations within India. Much like how the Bollywood industry has differentiated themselves from Hollywood, we too would produce our storylines towards our Indian demographic.

In our opinion the time has come for an independent Indian wrestling market. We no longer desire 'second hand' ideas from the west where they don't have any relevance for our youth. We would also do away from the heavily promoted sex and violence shown on western wrestling programming and promote more wholesome and patriotic storylines focused towards and which would have a more positive influence on our South Asian market.

Through the establishment of this pro wrestling federation, we expect opportunities for those individuals who are interested in becoming professional wrestlers to have the chance at making those 'dreams' a reality. It's always been my father's dream to be able to have wrestling schools available in India, so that the craft can be fine tuned and a pro career be available. We are very familiar of India's proud wrestling history of Dara Singh and The Great Gama and believe it is high time to restore the glory back to India. Even though I am non-resident Indian, I cannot start to explain the sadness and displeasure I feel at the fact that India having a population over one billion people cannot even win one gold medal in wrestling at the Olympics. The "icing on the cake" would be one day from within the infrastructure we are trying to create having a wrestler produced within our confines go on to win that elusive gold medal for India in wrestling at the Olympics.

Having said all this, the reality of the matter is that this can only be accomplished by "tag-teaming" up with a group in India that already has the necessary infrastructure to carry out these tasks. Trust me when I say that throughout the past my father has been approached by many individuals representing they could facilitate the necessary requirements, but unfortunately after careful investigation we realized this to be not true.

I've always discussed the matter with my father that we only have one chance at making this a success and therefore are not looking at any shortcuts at making the "dream" a reality. We have nothing to lose but wait for the proper pairing to occur and strongly believe after receiving Uncle's advice that Indian Company would be the best "tag-team" along with the Tiger's the world has ever seen!

Our initial goal is to promote a "Tiger Goodwill Tour" towards the end of March 2009, where both my father and I would come to India and visit schools, universities, hospitals, facilities for special need children, etc. and promote our anti-drug message. We would then like to follow up with having live events promoted in India during October 2009 in the same cities the goodwill tour had been promoted.

Eventually with God's grace, we would like to produce our brand of television programming, which would broadcast on India's airwave and offer an alternate and better choice of wrestling than what is being broadcast at the present moment via Ten Sports and Star Television.

In closing I hope that you will find everything you need to assist your decision in moving forward with us in restoring the pride of wrestling back in India and to rid the evils of drugs and alcohol from our youth once and for all.

Respectfully yours,

Tiger Ali Singh

Tiger Jr. — take 2

After lengthy hiatus, son of legendary pro wrestler ready to make his return

By Steve LeBlanc, In the stands

Sports
Nov 19, 2008

Given how he ended things with the WWE, it’s hard to believe Mick Hans would reflect on his former employer with anything but utter disdain.
Then again, pro wrestling is littered with examples of how time truly does heal all wounds. And the 37-year-old Miltonian — who after being released in 2002 filed a $7-million lawsuit against the ‘sports entertainment’ giant, claiming among other things that a career-ending injury was the result of being forced to perform in the rain with an affiliate promotion in Puerto Rico — can certainly be added to that list.

While he’s had no official fence mending with the WWE, Hans — better known by his in-ring moniker of Tiger Ali Singh — admits his time with Vince McMahon’s company provided a great learning experience.

“It’s easy to dwell on the negatives when you’re young. When it (split with WWE) first happened it was hard to see all the positives, but things change,” said the eldest son of Asian icon Tiger Jeet Singh, who signed with the WWE (then WWF) in 1997, just prior to the ‘Attitude Era.’ “I believe there’s a destiny to everything and as hard as it is to imagine, I wouldn’t change anything. I learned a lot from guys like Pat Patterson and Tim Pritchard about how to market myself. I was lacking some of that before.”

Hans is hoping to bring some of that showmanship to the Japanese audience starting tomorrow, when he begins his long-awaited comeback — doing so with Hustle Entertainment, whose roster includes fellow ex-WWE grappler Tajiri. His tour will include two tag matches with Tiger Sr. and a probable clash with six-foot-nine-inch, 500-plus-pound retired sumo great Akebono.

At a fairly sizable six-foot-five-inch, 295 pounds himself, the former WWE villain — who once humiliated American fans for money in his Asian royalty persona (similar to Ted DiBiase) — is far more suited to Japan’s largely ground-and-pound style than that of North America’s high flyers.

He’s incorporated a number of shoot-style moves into his arsenal, as well as an Olympic roll finisher.

Working with renowned trainer Ron Hutchinson for the past several months, Hans has gotten back to his mixed martial arts (MMA) roots leading up to this week’s big return.

Having schooled many top-name wrestlers like Edge and Christian Cage, Hutchinson admits he does worry that the three concussions his Milton protégé suffered within a nine-month period — just prior to his extended exile — could be a problem.

But speaking to Hans’ overall readiness to return, he’s largely optimistic.

“There’s always an issue about ring rust, but Mick’s done a phenomenal job preparing himself and he’s just so determined,” said Hutchinson, who first trained Hans in the early ‘80s and has been working with him three or four days a week for much of this year. “I’d probably be hesitant about taking on a student in their late ‘30s, but Mick’s really always been around the business through his father and knows what it’s all about.”

Now free of the chronic headaches that plagued him since the concussions, Hans says he’s in the best shape of his life — even with a torn ligament in September causing a serious disruption to his training — and feels more excited about competing than he did in his twenties.

“Maybe it was the whole arrogance with youth thing, but I was never really nervous before,” said the husband and father of three, who since his WWE departure focused on his family’s real estate and other business endeavours. “My dad and I both think that nervousness is a good thing. I’m probably going to be able to appreciate it (wrestling) more now.”

The father and son duo has a few other things lined up for the near future, including a private tournament in the Middle East next month and what they hope will be the first annual goodwill tour this spring in India — where down the road they’re looking to start up a wrestling/MMA promotion.

But for right now Tiger Jr. is focused solely on winning over the Japanese audience, much like his saber-wielding madman father has for close to 40 years now.

“I’m really looking forward to having that competitive kinship with my dad again and just enjoying this comeback, whether it’s for a year, two or 10. I’ve definitely had a feeling of unfinished business since leaving the WWE. I didn’t want that to be the way I ended wrestling, in a tainted or cheap way.” Source: http://www.miltoncanadianchampion.com/news/article/220382