| Takuya Sugi | |
|---|---|
Sugi in July 2011. |
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| Ring name(s) | Sugi San Sugi El Blazer Yoshitsune Shanao Mini CIMA Little Dragon HUSTLE Kamen Ranger Red Michinoku Ranger Gold AHII The★ZEST (2nd generation) Catfish Man Rabbit Boy Super Milo Uwai # 32 NOIZ |
| Billed height | 1.63 m (5 ft 4 in) |
| Billed weight | 65 kg (140 lb) |
| Born | October 6, 1983 Shizuoka City, Japan |
| Billed from | Hustling Nebula (as HUSTLE Kamen Ranger Red) |
| Trained by | Último Dragón Toryumon Wrestling School |
| Debut | May 11, 2003 |
Takuya Sugi (杉卓也) is a Japanese professional wrestler from Shizuoka. He currently wrestles as a freelancer in the Japanese independent circuit; he uses many aliases, most commonly Yoshitsune and El Blazer. He is mainly known for his high-flying abilities.
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He has worked for many Japanese federations: immediately after graduating in the 11th Toryumon school class term, he debuted in 2003 in Toryumon Mexico and later in Toryumon X with the gimmick of Mini CIMA (ミニCIMA), a little version of the Japanese wrestler CIMA, teaming up with SUWAcito and Small Dandy Fuji, forming the Mini CMAX stable. In 2004 he joined Michinoku Pro Wrestling, originally as Michinoku Ranger Gold during the Michinoku Pro Futuritabi Tag Team Tournament 2004, later changing his name and gimmick to Shanao (遮那王), gaining a major success by feuding with Kagetora. In late 2005 Sugi changed his stage name to Yoshitsune (義経), like the famous samurai Yoshitsune Minamoto. Yoshitsune gained a title shot for the Tohoku Jr. Heavyweight Title, losing to TAKA Michinoku, and another title match for the Tohoku Tag titles, teaming up with Rasse, losing to Great Sasuke & Dick Togo. Yoshitsune qualified to the Michinoku Pro Mask League Tournament 2007 (also known as Fukumen League), where he achieved the most important victory of his career by defeating Jushin Thunder Liger in the quarter finals and was later eliminated in the semifinals by Atlantis. After this strong push, he finally captured the Tohoku Junior Heavyweight Championship, on November 9, 2007, by defeating GAINA; on January 14 he captured the Tohoku Tag Team Championship too, teaming with Great Sasuke and defeating Rasse and Kagetora. He also appeared as Yoshitsune in some shows of Big Mouth LOUD and several others Japanese independent promotions, including the LOCK UP NJPW brand.
He worked for Dragondoor as Little Dragon (リトル・ドラゴン), a character of the same lineage of Último Dragón, Dragon Kid and Darkness Dragon, who wrestled in a blue outfit, but his character remained in low-carding and never won a single match, until the promotion failed.
He wrestled also in HUSTLE, where he debuted in 2004, as HUSTLE Kamen Ranger Red, leading the Kamen Rangers in their feud against the Monster Army; Kamen Rangers disappeared from HUSTLE after the show HUSTLEmania'06 and it is not currently known if their character will be used again in the future.
In 2006 Sugi joined the newborn El Dorado, wrestling as El Blazer (エルブレイザー), a legendary bird-like creature in a blue outfit; he was proposed as one of the original characters of the promotion. He originally used an outfit with blue feathers, later abandoned because of the fact they were often lost during the matches. Sugi wrestled as El Blazer also in GPWA, and in the Indy Summit 2006 as one of the El Dorado representatives. In February 2007, Takuya Sugi officially quit El Dorado as a full time roster member, thus becoming a freelancer, and he continues using the El Blazer gimmick as his main freelancing character. Soon after becoming a freelancer, Sugi continued appearing randomly in several Japanese promotions as El Blazer, including IGF, finally joining ZERO-1 Max as a member of the Masato Tanaka stable, called "Sword".
On August 20, 2006, Sugi debuted a new character, called AHII, in AJPW, the result of a cooperation between Sanrio Company Ltd. and the AJPW; on August 27 he wrestled his first match in AJPW, defeating Voodoo Mask and continued to work sporadically for the company during the next months, until February 2007, when the character was apparently dropped. AHII is a comedy character, whose gimmick resembles Curry Man, the character interpreted by Christopher Daniels, since AHII is inspired to the Mexican "Habanero" pepper.
Starting from June 3, 2007, Sugi appears in Kensuke Office as Catfish Man (なまずマン, pronounced Namazu Man).
On July 16, 2007, Sugi debuted a new gimmick in ZERO-1 Max during the "Fire Festival" tour: the character, named The★ZEST, is sponsored by the homonymous Japanese pachinko company and has already been used in 2006, but was interpreted by KAMIKAZE.
On July 24, The★ZEST captured the WWA Junior Lightweight Championship by defeating Osamu Namiguchi. On April 6, 2008 The★ZEST would lose the title in a match vs NOIZ; curiosly NOIZ was Takuya Sugi and, for this match only, The★ZEST was someone else.
Another gimmick he used in 2007 is UWAI # 32, a robot character only used in UWAI Station.
In February 2008 he appeared in AJPW as a one night stand character, called Rabbit Boy. Later the same year he would appear in the same company as Super Milo in a one night stand performance.
Sugi made his American debut (as El Blazer) for Pro Wrestling Guerrilla on May 17, 2008. He teamed with KAGETORA on PWG's second annual DDT4 tournament, defeating Scott Lost and Joey Ryan in the first round, but losing to the PWG World Tag Team Champions Kevin Steen and El Generico in a title match in the next.
Sugi making his a debut in AAA a six man tag match in lucha libre styles. His name was announced as Sugi. He won his debut match by being a rudo and starting a feud with Extreme Tiger right a way by pinning him in the match. This could lead to a future AAA Cruiserweight Championship shot for Sugi.
Sugi Is Currently in Pro Wrestling NOAH