Masahiko Takasugi

[KinchStalker]

Masahiko Takasugi (高杉正彦)/Ultraseven (ウルトラセブン)

Profession: Wrestler, Promoter
Real name: Masahiko Takasugi
Professional names: Masahiko Takasugi, Ultraseven, Super Seven
Life: 6/17/1955-
Born: Hiratsuka, Kanagawa, Japan
Career: 1977-
Height/Weight: 175cm/110kg (5'9"/242 lbs.)
Signature moves: Flying crosschop, backdrop, hip attack
Promotions: International Wrestling Enterprise, All Japan Pro Wrestling, Pioneer Senshi, Shonan Pro Wrestling
Titles: none

Masahiko Takasugi was one of the IWE’s last significant products and became an early indie pioneer. He is also notable for wrestling under a gimmick based on Ultraseven.

In the 1970s, a generation of puroresu superfans expressed their passion through the first fan club boom. If these fans made wrestling a part of their professional life, they generally did so through puroresu journalism, and nearly all of them through Kosuke Takeuchi’s Gong. These included the likes of Tsutomu Shimizu, Jimmy Suzuki, and Kagehiro Osano. Now, this wasn’t the only way that this generation entered the business; look at Universal Lucha Libre announcer Tera Hanbay, who had been a member of Shimizu’s El Amigo club in the 70s. But none of them ever dared to lace up a pair of boots. None, that is, except Masahiko Takasugi. Takasugi was an avid fan who attended shows by the JWA, IWE, NJPW, and AJPW in his youth. His club was Mametank (“beantank”), dedicated to the Yamaha Brothers. After playing gridiron football during his time in university (I found contradictory claims as to whether he graduated or dropped out), Takasugi applied for the IWE; he had been connected to them through working out at the Yokohama Sky Gym, owned by former wrestler and IWE referee Takao Kaneko. When he joined in May 1977, he was the promotion’s first new recruit in five years. Debuting in September 1977, Takasugi would become associated with subsequent trainees Hiromichi Fuyuki and Nobuyoshi Sugawara as the “three crows” of late-period IWE. 

As the IWE began its death spiral in 1980, an opportunity emerged for Takasugi. That November, Carlos Plata worked on the promotion’s last tour of the year, and he recognized Takasugi’s skill and potential. Plata wanted to bring him to EMLL, and when he was booked again by the IWE the following spring, Carlos brought the documentation that would make Takasugi eligible for a work visa. This would not materialize during the IWE’s life due to the priority of funding Ashura Hara’s second excursion, which was intended to transition Hara to the heavyweight division. However, Takasugi would get his chance after the promotion’s final show in August. He traveled to the Mexican embassy in Tokyo to get his visa and embarked for Mexico with Mach Hayato. Although the promotion was so financially depleted that the wrestlers could not afford to pay their full trip back from Hokkaido to Tokyo, relying on the generosity of a bus driver to give them a free ride on the Tohoku Expressway, Takasugi got a final bit of support when IWE president Isao Yoshiwara covered his travel expenses in lieu of paying him for his final dates.

Left: Takasugi as Ultraseven. 

Takasugi’s expedition was a success, and he developed friendships with fellow travelers from rival promotions, such as AJPW’s Atsushi Onita and NJPW’s Kuniaki Kobayashi, Hiro Saito, and George Takano. He temporarily returned to Japan at the start of 1982. While his peers Fuyuki and Sugawara had joined All Japan under the wing of Mighty Inoue, Takasugi was brought into the fold through former IWE sales manager Takehiko Nemoto, who had joined AJPW’s sales department. Takasugi had left his gear and belongings in Mexico, though, so he didn’t stay long. Takasugi pitched a masked gimmick to Giant Baba, inspired by the Tiger Mask boom as well as the success of Ultraman on NJPW house shows in the summer of 1979. This was apparently something that Hiro Saito had suggested to him, and Kuniaki Kobayashi had suggested a gimmick based on early-70s tokusatsu series Kaiketsu Lion-Maru. What Takasugi would get was Ultraseven, who had been the second superhero in the Ultra franchise. He struggled to make the mask from memory in Mexico, and called his younger brother, but it was difficult for his brother to find official resources due to the Ultra franchise’s decline after Ultraman 80. He finally found a book, though, and Takasugi managed to complete the mask. While AJPW president Mitsuo Matsune apparently did gain permission from Tsuburaya Productions, the studio has never publicly acknowledged this, and states in official books that the only Ultra-derived wrestling gimmick that they have approved is Atsushi Onai’s Ultraman Robin. (According to a 2017 G Spirits book, there were plans circa 1984 to retool Takasugi with a gimmick based on Kinnikuman. NJPW's Junji Hirata was also bidding for the gimmick around that time, but neither would get it.)

Takasugi appeared with an Ultraseven decoy in a June 1982 press conference, wherein a challenge was made to Atsushi Onita. He debuted for the company during the Summer Action Series tour and got his title match on July 9. While Ultraseven would appear again during that autumn’s Super Power Series, he would not join AJPW fulltime until 1983. That year, after Onita’s knee injury, he was among those who unsuccessfully challenged Chavo Guerrero for the NWA International Junior Heavyweight title, and he worked all but the last tour of 1984 as well, before accompanying Fuyuki on a UWA excursion. Takasugi wrestled as himself upon his return to All Japan in spring 1985, as the revived Kokusai Ketsumeigun heel faction gave someone with his roots a spot. However, Takasugi was ultimately a victim of budget cuts in spring 1986, cut alongside Sugawara, Ryuma Go, and referee Mr. Hayashi.

Right: Takasugi (right) on the cover of the program for Pioneer Senshi's first show.

Takasugi spent the next three years working freelance, sometimes as a mysterious masked wrestler on All Japan shows, or on events near his hometown. Alongside Go, he worked a full tour in summer 1987, likely to fill the holes left by the last couple of Japan Pro Wrestling talent to return to NJPW. In 1989, Takasugi, Go, and Sugawara reconvened to fire the first shot in the indie boom. Takasugi and Sugawara wanted to name the new promotion Shin Kokusai Puroresu (New International Pro Wrestling) but Go was hesitant due to his shame over having left the IWE in 1978. They settled on the IWE-reminiscent Pioneer Senshi, which they got from former IWE reporter and color commentator Takashi Kikuchi. Like Sugawara, Takasugi would only work the promotion’s first show in April 1989. While Sugawara got hooked up with a job coaching Koji Kitao and then working for SWS, Takasugi returned to freelance work in the early 90s. These included a match with Jushin Thunder Liger in 1990, where Takasugi took a page from Satoru Sayama’s book and billed himself as Super Seven. In 1993, he joined a union of independent promotions, upon which he would form his own IWA Shonan. Takasugi took bookings for various promotions, such as W*ING, the Takano brothers’ Pro Wrestling Crusaders, Takashi Ishikawa’s Tokyo Pro, and Go’s Oriental Pro. Meanwhile, IWA Shonan promoted shows in both Takasugi’s hometown and in Yokohama, which was the home of fellow Union promotion Kokusai Pro Wrestling Promotion, headed by Takasugi’s IWE senior Goro Tsurumi. Upon the Union’s dissolution in 1996, he renamed his company Shonan Puroresu. With the exception of a 20th anniversary show in 2016, however, Shonan has essentially been defunct since 1998, as Takasugi has concentrated on taking freelance bookings and running his own gym. Over the years, Takasugi has revived the Ultraseven gimmick on the indie circuit on occasion, while also working under his own name. 

In 2012, Takasugi made puroresu history when he teamed alongside his eldest son Yuki in a tag match, which was billed as a memorial for his old friend Go. Japan’s first father-son duo lost to Go disciple Kazuhiko Matsuzaki when Matsuzaki hit a neckbreaker drop on Yuki.