(NOAH) Avoiding "close contact" by wearing gloves...Noah champion Takashi Sugiura's Boxing Match!?

ABEMA TIMES
20th April 2020

In March and April, various pro wrestling groups have held empty arena matches. Of course, its best to entertain audiences with performances that you would do ordinarily, but there is also a bonus in not having spectrators. One of those things are "freedom", and there are things that you can do because you do not have an audience.

For example, Go Shiozaki vs Kazuyuki Fujita at Noah's Korakuen. It was controversial, but definitely it would have been impossible with an audience to have a thirty minute historical staredown. In addition, it is easy to have a brawl outside the stadium, and you can "play" with things and "experiment" with things that are different from usual.

At the Noah TV match which was broadcast on April 19th by ABEMA, the GHC National Champion, the veteran, Takashi Sugiura showed a lot of "play".
The opponent this evening was Rocky Kawamura. Rocky is a powerful wrestlers, who has achieved the second grade of Mixed Martial Arts in Pancrase, he is also a wrestler who loves the movie "Rocky", and as a result wears boxing gloves to the pro wrestling ring. Even if you hold a microphone to him, he will give the familiar cry of "Adrian!"
Sugiura also wore gloves to the ring to face such an opponent. It was meant to be a boxing match (but there was a rope break), had there been spectators, there would have been a "?" floating above everyone's head.

However, Rocky was better when it came to punch defense, and Sugiura, who was on the ropes during the match, said "this is bad" and removed the gloves. Then it started to look like a different match, it looked like Mixed Martial Arts. Sugiura then sat on the mat, and did low kicks.

To take control of the match, Sugiura went to the outside, and after tying Rocky's boxing glove to the entrance gate, he leisurely strolled to the ring as the countdown progressed. Rocky managed to remove his gloves and dash to the ring, but he was too late and lost by countout. It could be said that this was a match that surpassed Rocky vs Thunderlips in "Rocky 3".
Sugiura, the winner, grabbed the microphone ad said, "Let me say one thing, "ADRIAN!!"

The match, which would have left an audience stunned, was also something that made me feel the playfulness of Sugiura. According to Sugiura, the reason for wearing gloves was "avoiding contact".

"I didn't like to be touched. I wanted the match to be more of an outboxer and take more distance, but this turned into a fight." Sugiura, who commented appearing in short tight white shorts said when returning to waiting room, "Rocky is up to 5+ "The Final". In fact, he highly appreciated Rocky as a wrestler, and seems enthusiastic about doing the "sequel".

Translated from an original article by Munehiro Hashimoto from ABEMA Sports
Picture credits: ABEMA Sports