The other day I was chatting with my guy The Prophet of The Savage Science and he mentioned this Japanese wrestler that he claimed was "borderline ridiculous." So I check this guy out and learn that there is nothing borderline about it. He is 100% ridiculous.
The wrestler I am speaking of is a man named Takuya Sugi. He is 24 years old, was trained by Ultimo Dragon, and he is absolutely amazing. How this man has not been signed by Vince McMahon and the WWE is beyond me. I don't care if he is only 5'4" and 143 pounds, I would pay to watch him wrestle any day of the week. Something I cannot say about 99% of the current wrestlers performing in the United States today.
How good is he? I'll let some of the comments (with spelling/grammar errors corrected by me) from people who watched videos of him on YouTube tell you...
- "He is a living video game. DAMN!!!!!!!!!"
- "I don't really like wrestling, but this dude is awesome!"
- "OK, umm this guy is insane. And yeah, holy crap."
- "Dude, he is insane."
- "He has flawless form. The absolute pinnacle of high-fliers."
- "That blazing arrow [move] made me spit out my Mountain Dew!"
- "One of the very best in the whole damn planet!"
- "This dude is fuckin' wicked."
- "Damn, this guy is only in his 20's and he is doing moves no one else can do!"
- "There is a legend, that after God created men, he realized he could do much better, and then Takuya Sugi was born."
- Shooting star senton
- Swan dive 450° splash
- Twisting victory roll pin
- Slingshot corkscrew split-legged moonsault
- Swan dive dragonrana
- Reverse 450° splash
- Running standing step-over shooting star press
- Diving inside cradle
- Ropewalk springboard dropkick
- Corkscrew 450° splash
- High mounted corkscrew 450° splash
- Corkscrew Asai moonsault
- High speed pinning hurricanrana
- Corkscrew dragonrana
- Corkscrew shooting star press
- High speed swan dive pinning hurricanrana
- Corkscrew moonsault
- Electric chair twisted into a sunset flip powerbomb
- Split-legged springboard leg drop
- Double springboard frog splash
- Iconoclasm
- Déjà vu headscissors takedown
- Déjà vu implant DDT
- Springboard moonsault into a double back elbow smash
- Tiger feint kick over the top rope
- Springboard diving elbow drop
- Inverted hurricanrana
- Cartwheel into a moonsault plancha
For comparison's sake, I've listed the finishing maneuvers of the legendary Undertaker (who headlined the latest edition of Wrestlemania and is arguably the greatest wrestler of the past 15 years)...
- Tombstone Piledriver
- Last Ride
- Chokeslam
- Gogoplata
If that's not enough to convince you of Sugi's talent, just check this out... (And be sure to hang around because the second half of the video is the real treat.)
As my man Matt of Let's Wrestle and Epic Carnival says, "Bottom line is wrestling in Mexico and Japan is downright an art form. The wrestling here in the U.S. is NOTHING like that of Japan and Mexico."
So which type of wrestling do you think is more fun to watch? Takuya Sugi sure makes me wonder.
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6 comment(s):
Great post--the guy that sent it to you must be a real sharp dude...
Seriously, the sad thing is that Vince McMahon would never sign this guy and if he did he'd be "doing jobs" for Hacksaw Jim Duggan. You just need to look at the dying days of WCW to see how this would go down--they'd bring in a "Who's Who" of Mexican Lucha Libre only to have Scott Hall and Kevin Nash beat up about 9 of them without breaking a sweat.
I won't go so far as to call McMahon a racist, but I can't recall (and as you know I have quite a recollection in these matters) a Japanese wrestler that he's not done some stereotypical gimmick with. For all of my gripes with WCW I thought it was cool that they didn't get all stereotypical with Muta, Liger and some of the other guys they brought in. Tajiri might be an exception, but he's done more jobs than a high school dropout with focus issues.
My *only* gripe with Sugi is that he needs to work on his 'ring psychology' a little bit more. He's a little too 'robotic', but then again I've always favored a more realistic style and persona. Technically, he's about 5 years ahead of everyone else in the sport.
The funny thing about the Undertaker comparison is that he's only been using the gogoplata as a finisher for a few months. Even funnier is the fact that Vince McMahon has told his announcers not to *call* it a gogoplata b/c he doesn't want to help MMA "get over". This means that his announce team has to act like they've never seen it before, when every 12 year old at home knows the move.
Vince is notorious for trying to keep it simple, to the point he makes guys with insane skills--like CM Punk--"tone it down" so the other stiffs on the roster don't look bad by comparison. Punk's also been kept on a short leash for his promos which is absurd since he's like Flair was back in the day--just give him a mic and get the hell out of the way.
The pin at 4:32 is wicked.
Everything the guy does is wicked...those huracanrana to implant piledriver things he does are downright insane. Best finisher in pro wrestling at the moment. I also love those--I have no clue what he calls them but they're the things where he spins around the ring ropes and kicks the guy in the back of the head--maybe they're a spinning shining wizard or something? And don't get me started on those tightwalk rope drop kicks he does....
And knowing that the proprietor of this fine website is a big Ric Flair mark (as am I), check out the move he pulls right around the 1:00 minute mark--that's a classic "Flair flip" only taken to a mind boggling extreme. Wish they didn't cut it off so quickly--I'll try and track down a better version of that..
I was thinking about my critique yesterday that he needs to learn ring psychology and the like...I still think I'm right, but after thinking about it its like complaining that your Ferrari isn't a good car for hauling a bunch of kids. My biggest concern about him is that if he doesn't tone it down at least a *little* bit he won't have any knees left by the time he's thirty, much like what happened to The Great Muta (aka Keiji Mutoh). Muta was able to keep working to this day because he's so good at the ring psychology part of the business that he's able to compensate for his physical limitations..
Please stop dropping all this wrestling knowledge on us. The ladies are gonna never leave us alone!
that man needs to be in the wwe pronto
Running on the ropes is gonna revolutionize wrestling. That is awesome.
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