Thunder Sugiyama

[KinchStalker]

Thunder Sugiyama (サンダー杉山)

Real name: Tsuneharu Sugiyama (杉山恒治)
Professional names: Tsuneharu Sugiyama, Tokyo Joe, Thunder Sugiyama
Life: 7/23/1940-11/22/2002
Born: Itoigawa, Niigata, Japan
Career: 1966-1980
Height/Weight: 178cm/125kg (5’10”/275 lbs.)
Signature moves: Raizen drop (hip drop), German suplex hold, savate kick
Promotions: Japan Wrestling Association, International Wrestling Enterprise, All Japan Pro Wrestling
Titles:  TWWA World Tag Team (2x; 1x w/Toyonobori, 1x w/Rusher Kimura); IWA World Tag Team [IWE] (3x; 2x w/Great Kusatsu, 1x w/Rusher Kimura); European Tag Team [IWE] (1x, with Great Kusatsu), IWA World Heavyweight [IWE] (1x)

While now the less famous of puroresu’s first two Olympian recruits, Thunder Sugiyama was once a major player as the IWE’s first native ace.

Sugiyama with the 1964 Olympic wrestling team (standing, far left). In front of him kneels Masanori Saito.

Tsuneharu Sugiyama was born in Itoigawa, Niigata, as the illegitimate child of a businessman. While he was taken in by Masatake’s family, who either moved to Nagoya in his youth or already lived there, Tsuneharu was hardly favored by his new mother and half-brother, and he was not spoiled by his father. He would later claim in his autobiography that he had wanted to become stronger because he could not defeat his half-brother Masakatsu, a karateka fifteen years his senior, in sparring. Tsuneharu would enter judo, where he became a high school champion; according to one source, he became the youngest fourth-dan judoka in the world. He wanted to attend Meiji University, but his advisor forced him to go to Doshisha instead. Sugiyama continued to practice judo, but his size and strength made none willing to be his training partner. In the winter of freshman year, Tsuneharu caught pneumonia during solo field training, and Masakatsu drove to the training camp to pick up his son and his belongings. Sugiyama dropped out of not just the club, but the university. When his body recovered, he was accepted by the Chukyo University club as a coach and special student. He had planned to transfer to Meiji when he completed the year but had inadvertently offended the Meiji judo club when he told them he would enroll at Meiji and went to Doshisha instead. These were the circumstances that led Tsuneharu to amateur wrestling, as the judo club’s assistant director offered to recommend Sugiyama to the university’s agriculture department if he joined Meiji’s wrestling team.

Just ten days after he joined, Sugiyama entered the qualifiers for the 1960 Olympics, and won, but was disqualified due to his lack of experience in the sport. Nevertheless, he cited the flattery of seeing his feat reported in the papers as a motivator to stick with wrestling. He won two gold and two silver medals at collegiate championships during his tenure, with all but one gold in the Greco-Roman division. He would join Japan’s Tokyo Olympic team as its Greco-Roman heavyweight, where he lost to gold and bronze medalists István Kozma (Hungary) and Wilfred Dietrich (Germany) to drop out after the third round. Afterwards, Sugiyama became the secretary of Ichiro Hatta, the president of the Japan Amateur Wrestling Association, and the white-haired man in a suit that you see in that Olympic team photo. It would be at Hatta’s suggestion that, in summer 1965, Sugiyama joined the JWA alongside former rugby star Masakate Kusatsu. Alongside fellow Olympian wrestler Masanori Saito, who had joined the promotion a few months before them, they would be known as the JWA’s “three crows”.

Sugiyama debuted on March 4, 1966, going to a draw with Kazuo Honma. Like Kusatsu, he continued to wrestle for them until September, with Sugiyama’s last match being a loss to Hideyuki Nagasawa on September 23. On October 6, Sugiyama and Kusatsu accompanied former JWA sales manager Isao Yoshiwara to the offices of the Tokyo Sports newspaper, where the two wrestlers announced their resignations and departures for America. While Kusatsu would embark on a training expedition under the stewardship of Hiro Matsuda, Sugiyama announced that he would receive training from Dale Lewis. On October 24, both men were present at the press conference announcing the formation of the International Wrestling Enterprise. (Masakatsu got a seat on the board of directors.) Sugiyama spent a year in America as Tokyo Joe, under which he wrestled in the Detroit and Amarillo territories. Sugiyama’s work at home had a “rough” streak which would be credited to this time as a heel. Later in his life, Sugiyama cited amateur wrestler turned Benihana restauranteur Rocky Aoki as a major inspiration on him during this time. It is clear that Sugiyama never saw pro wrestling as a permanent occupation and considered it a steppingstone to increase his profile for a future career in business.

Plans to bring him and Kusatsu back in autumn 1967 fell through, as the IWE could not raise the funds to book their third tour, but when they signed a deal with Tokyo Broadcasting System, both men returned. The company’s first tour of 1968, under the temporary rebrand of TBS Pro Wrestling, saw Sugiyama receive a shot at Lou Thesz’s TWWA Heavyweight title after Kusatsu’s disastrous title match. Perhaps due to his legitimate background, Sugiyama was the only Japanese wrestler who Thesz took a pinfall from across his three title matches on this tour, and one of those was against Toyonobori! On their truncated following tour, he and Toyonobori defeated the Fabulous Kangaroos on February 14 to win the TWWA World Tag Team titles. The pair would hold the titles for fourteen months, and when they did lose them, it was of their own volition after they retained by disqualification against Stan Stasiak & Tank Morgan. Eight days after this, Sugiyama and Rusher Kimura defeated Stasiak & Morgan for the vacant belts in puroresu’s first hair match. The TWWA tag titles were vacated and phased out when Kimura left for America that summer. In the autumn's IWE World Tag Team Challenge Series, Sugiyama and Kusatsu won the European Tag Team titles on November 1 from the El Mansouri brothers. Sugiyama’s next gold was won in early 1970. After Toyonobori’s retirement vacated the IWA World Tag Team titles, Sugiyama & Kusatsu battled Andre Roussimoff & Micha Nador for them. They lost the first match, but won a rematch when Sugiyama pinned Andre in the decisive fall. (The duo would defend the European titles twice in the summer before the belts were forgotten.)

Sugiyama brings the IWA World Heavyweight title home.

Sugiyama got married before the 2nd IWA World Series tour, on which he would cement himself as the promotion’s first native ace. Billy Robinson, who had won the IWA World Heavyweight title in the first tournament for it in 1968, competed in the Series in his first appearances since spring 1969. I cannot tell you how Sugiyama lost this tournament, because no preliminary matches were technically promoted as such! The IWE claimed that it was a round-robin tournament between five natives and five gaikokujin, and Sugiyama indeed wrestled all five gaikokujin, but he wrestled them multiple times. (Note that this is not a Cagematch error in not marking the preliminary matches as World Series matches, as the Showa Puroresu fanzine corroborates that no such matches were promoted.) One presumes that the tournament was a half-hearted measure to promote native “finalist” Strong Kobayashi, who had been given a singles push but was scheduled to leave on an excursion in a few months. The World Series “final” saw Robinson defend his title against Kobayashi, one of three defenses he would mount in as many nights. When Robinson retained against him, and then against Kusatsu on May 18, it must have seemed that the IWE’s world title would not be brought home; Robinson had even remarked to Pro Wrestling & Boxing magazine that he might end his association with the IWE soon, due to an AWA offer. But on May 19 in Sendai, Sugiyama got his first shot at the title. Robinson may have come out on top against Kobayashi and Kusatsu, as well as Toyonobori and Kimura in previous years, but this was his first defense against the Olympian wrestler. Sugiyama won the first fall with a succession of raizen drops, but Robinson maneuvered his way to a pinfall in the second. The match got rough in the clutch and spilled over to the outside. As the countout loomed, Sugiyama returned to the ring in time, and struck Robinson on the apron with his elbow. Robinson’s foot got stuck on the ropes, suspending him in midair as he was counted out.

Sugiyama would hold the world title for the rest of the year, mounting six successful defenses against gaikokujin like Eduoard Carpentier, Larry Hennig, and an ersatz Blue Demon (Buddy Wolff). He and Kusatsu would lose the tag titles in November, a measure to put over Hennig and Bob Windham, but they won them back to end the year. Sugiyama would hold the world title until March 4, 1971, when he lost to Bill Miller in the third defense of the year. Miller’s reign proved to be a transitional one to Kobayashi, and Sugiyama never challenged for the title again. He continued to hold the tag titles until June, when they were vacated as Kusatsu prepared for his second excursion. Sugiyama revived his TWWA title-winning duo with Rusher Kimura to challenge for the vacant championship. That September, they lost their first challenge against Red Bastien and Bill Howard on the 9th but won the rematch on the 23rd. Disregard Cagematch’s erroneous data, which pastes the 11/19/70 title switch onto the 1971 date as well; this reign lasted eight months. After the 4th IWA World Series tour, which saw a final successful defense against Franz von Buyten and Andre the Giant, the belts were vacated.

After this, Sugiyama reduced his bookings and switched from an exclusive wrestler to a contractor, only working eight of the Big Summer Series’ 17 dates and two dates on the Dynamite Series. As early as late 1970, Sugiyama had been broadening his focus with variety show appearances and businesses. By this point, he had joined Nagoya trading company Suzuken, for which he was managing a restaurant and heading a tourism department. However, Giant Baba saw Sugiyama’s reduced presence as a waste, and he paid Isao Yoshiwara to acquire him in an amicable transfer to the nascent All Japan Pro Wrestling. Sugiyama would work fulltime for All Japan. Outside of a December 1972 shot at the Destroyer’s pet United States Heavyweight title, he received no championship matches and was booked as a second-tier talent, and if there were any plans for him to team with Baba on a long-term basis they were changed. He did take to AJPW golden child and fellow Greco-Roman Olympian Jumbo Tsuruta, though, and Akio Sato later recalled that he frequently took Tsuruta out to dinner. Sugiyama wound down his appearances beginning in 1975 and particularly into early 1976, as he concentrated on work as a television personality. This brought him into sharp conflict with Baba, as in a backstage argument the two had on a February show, Sugiyama wanted more money while Baba said that the younger talent were complaining about his frequent variety show appearances. Sugiyama declined to renew his contract when it ended that April.

Sugiyama wrestles Kim Il (Kintaro Oki) in Seoul on September 8, 1976.

This began the final phase of Sugiyama’s career. In the 1970s, a new class of Japanese wrestler emerged: the freelancer. Most of these were created by political circumstances and calcified by domestic roots, as talent such as Umanosuke Ueda, Mr. Hito, Yasu Fujii, and Mr. Seki (the future Mr. Pogo) decided to base themselves overseas while working in their homeland on a tour-by-tour basis. Sugiyama would be the rare freelancer that remained based in Japan. From summer 1976 through early 1978, he returned to the IWE as a parttimer. Notably, Sugiyama challenged for the IWA tag titles alongside Umanosuke Ueda in July 1976, on the tour that made Ueda’s name as a traitor heel. When a tournament for the vacated belts was held the following March, Sugiyama entered alongside Ryuma Go, but Go took the fall in the second round to finalists Big John Quinn & Kurt von Hess. Sugiyama also came to South Korea in September 1976, where he received the last singles title shot of his career against Kim Il/Kintaro Oki. The last notable matches in Sugiyama’s career came in winter 1978, when he joined Hiro Matsuda’s freelancer faction Okami Gundan and entered New Japan Pro Wrestling’s Pre-Japanese League tournament. A 2018 book by former NJPW referee Mr. Takahashi claims that, by this point, Sugiyama took freelance bookings with the expectation that he was to be protected, but Kotetsu Yamamoto reneged on this by booking a loss to Tatsumi Fuijinami in his first match of the tour and tournament. The NJPW Pre-Japan Championship Series was the last proper tour that Sugiyama would work. He wrestled on three shows—two NJPW, one IWE—in 1979 and 1980, all of which were held in his hometown of Nagoya.

After his wrestling and television careers came to a close. Sugiyama proved a successful businessman in Nagoya. His Thunder Sugiyama Co. spread into multiple businesses, including love hotels, a restaurant supply chain, vending machines, and a corporate janitorial business, and would eventually claim 3.5 billion yen in annual sales. He had suffered from diabetes since his wrestling days, though, and it eventually worsened, alongside liver disease and stomach cancer. Frequently hospitalized in his last days, Sugiyama’s legs and right wrist were ultimately amputated. He remained passionate in his business to the end, as he ran things by email from his hospital bed. He died on November 22, 2002.

Sugiyama circa late 2001.

Miscellaneous

• According to Showa Puroresu (issue #20), Sugiyama traveled to South Korea during his JWA tenure to hold an amateur wrestling seminar.
• Sugiyama’s “Crossroads” was an early entry in the mens’ puroresu single.

[KinchStalker]

MAJOR UPDATE: I have corrected some glaring errors and significantly expanded this profile with info on Sugiyama's early life and IWA world title victory.