 At NJPW Wrestle Kingdom III he pushed New Japan Pro Wrestling representative Shinsuke Nakamura to his limit in a cross promotional tag team match with Mitsuharu Misawa and Hirooki Goto as their respective partners, but came up short and tapped out to Nakamura's Cross Armbar finish.Nakamura then stated that there would be a singles match between them soon, as he felt he was embarrassed by a wrestler below his standards.The two met again later in the year in a cross-promotional match, this time Sugiura teamed with blue-chip prospect Go Shiozaki & Nakamura teamed with then-RISE stablemate Milano Collection AT, who was also returning from injury.