Takuya Sugi

Takuya Sugi
Sugi in July 2011.
Born	(1983-10-06) October 6, 1983 Shizuoka City, Japan
Professional wrestling career
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) Namazu Man Rabbit Boy Super Milo Uwai #32 NOIZ Dual Force
Billed height	1.63 m (5 ft 4 in)
Billed weight	65 kg (143 lb)
Billed from	Hustling Nebula (as HUSTLE Kamen Ranger Red)
Trained by	Último Dragón Jorge "Skayde" Rivera
Debut	May 11, 2003

Takuya Sugi (杉卓也, Sugi Takuya)^[1] is a Japanese professional wrestler from Shizuoka. He 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.

Career

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 Crazy MAX stable. In 2004 he joined Michinoku Pro Wrestling, originally as Michinoku Ranger Gold during the Michinoku Pro Futuritabi Tag Team Tournament 2004, under a super sentai gimmick. Later, Sugi changed his name and gimmick to Shanao (遮那王), a masked Buddhist monk based in the famous samurai Yoshitsune Minamoto, and gained a major success teaming with Kagetora to win the Futaritabi Tag Team League. Kagetora turned on him short after and went to found the STONED stable. Shortly after Shanao received a title match for the Tohoku Tag titles, teaming up with Rasse, losing to Great Sasuke & Dick Togo. In late 2005 Shanao performed a genpuku officed by Jinsei Shinzaki ceremony and proclaimed himself as Yoshitsune (義経), using a new, samurai-esque purple and red outfit. Yoshitsune gained a title shot for the Tohoku Jr. Heavyweight Title, losing to TAKA Michinoku. 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 New Japan Pro Wrestling brand. Later, in 2009, Yoshitsune dropped the Tohoku Junior Heavyweight Championship to the Kowloon leader Hayato Fujita.

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. Little Dragon was an ally of face ace Taiji Ishimori, but they didn't gained success before 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.

In 2006 Sugi joined the newborn El Dorado, wrestling as El Blazer (エルブレイザー), a phoenix-based creature in a gold and blue armor-like 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. El Blazer established a tag team with Milanito Collection a.t. and teamed sometimes with Kota Ibushi. Same year Sugi wrestled as El Blazer also in Global Professional Wrestling Alliance (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 continued using the El Blazer gimmick as his main freelancing character. El Blazer then turned to a comedic character prone to mysteriously faint at his entrance, and had an appearance in Dramatic Dream Team's brand Cruiser's Game wrestling against Mikami after (kayfabe) having been smoking marijuana. 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 played a new character, called Ahii, in All Japan Pro Wrestling (AJPW), the result of a cooperation between Sanrio Company Ltd. and the AJPW. Ahii, who was brought by Keiji Mutoh from Mexico, debuted after the main event, saving Mutoh, Masanobu Fuchi, and Kaz Hayashi from Voodoo Murders. 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 Namazu Man (なまずマン, "Catfish Man"). Shortly after, Namazu Man started to be played by another wrestler.

On July 16, 2007, Sugi debuted a new gimmick in ZERO-1 Max during the "Fire Festival" tour: the character, named The Zest, was sponsored by the homonymous Japanese pachinko company and had already been used in 2006, but was played 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; Noiz was Takuya Sugi and, for this match only, The Zest was Kamikaze.

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 against Giant Jet.

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 made 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.

Sugi is semi-inactive, making appearances from time to time in AAA. Both in Mexico and Japan, Sugi started a feud with Ronin.

On July 9, 2012, Sugi held a press conference to announce his involvement in a conspiracy that had gotten Kazushige Nosawa and Io Shirai arrested for marijuana possession and smuggling. According to Sugi, Masahiro Hayashi, who worked as a liaison between AAA and Japan and had a personal grudge with Nosawa, promised him a contract extension with AAA in exchange for him planting the drugs on the couple.^[2]

In July 2013, Sugi returned to Japan and began working for Noah under a new mask as Dual Force.^[3] However, only weeks later, Sugi suffered a serious knee injury and was sidelined from in-ring action.^[4]