Trivia / Takuya Sugi

• Acting for Two: In an odd case, Dual Force and SUGI's enemy RONIN are said by Word of God to be the same character, which means Sugi played his own archenemy when he wrestled in NOAH in 2013.
• Career Resurrection: Five years after the infamous NOSAWA incident 2017, Sugi made an improbable return to pro wrestling as Pro Wrestling ZERO1's new junior sensation.
• Creator Backlash:
  • Although Sugi is famous for his endless list of gimmicks, this trait was actually a source of aggravation for him, as he had been wishing to wrestle under his real name since the start of his career. He had expected to break out as Sugi some time after his Mini CIMA character, but his first masked gimmicks were so successful that they basically typecasted as a multi-gimmick performer for the Japanese promotions. Sugi finally got his wish in AAA when he was given the chance to go under his true surname, and now that he has established himself as SUGI, he routinely rejects all offers to play other characters.
  • The Mini CIMA gimmick in particular. While Sugi acknowledges it was a honor to be chosen to play the mini of a wrestling ace like CIMA, he felt disappointed to be given a derivative character for his early career.
• Promoted Fanboy: By his own admission, he was a wrestling fan since childhood by influence of his brother.
• Real Song Theme Tune:
  • As Yoshitsune, he used "Kazabayashi Volcano (Fuhrinkazan)" by GACKT.
  • As El Blazer in Dragon Gate, he used "Aquí y Ahora" by David Bisbal.
  • As NOIZ he used a theme song played by Imitation Pops Uchuu Sentai NOIZ.
  • As Sugi in AAA, he used the theme of The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift.
• Role-Ending Misdemeanor: In 2012, Sugi was ordered by AAA directive Masahiro Hayashi to plant drugs in NOSAWA Rongai's baggage to get him arrested, in exchange for a solid contract. At the end, however, Takuya gave a press conference and confessed the truth. The case caused him to be expelled from the Fukumen World League (in which he was set to take part representing AAA) and get likely blackballed from most wrestling promotions in both countries. The worst thing was that Konnan and most of the AAA wrestlers were on his side, knowing that Hayashi had practically blackmailed him to do it. Nonetheless, many thought his career was destroyed forever, until a year later he made a brief return to Pro Wrestling NOAH under a very covert identity. It took four years for him to make his official return and one more to start wrestling full time again.
• What Could Have Been:
  • Being a fan of New Japan Pro-Wrestling's great heavyweights, among them Antonio Inoki, The Great Muta and Shinya Hashimoto, Sugi originally wanted to become an allrounder wrestler like them. However, his small body size and practically forced him to become a high-flyer. This amusingly reverses the background of Hashimoto himself, who wanted to be a high-flyer but was forced to work as a heavyweight due to his large size.
  • Sugi was going to move to AAA under his Yoshitsune persona, but the promotion's management thought the name was too complicated for the Hispanosphere to spell and instead allowed Sugi to choose his ring name. He went with his real surname, and it became Sugi San.