I have the proper pliers, but one time after I had some work done at my indy mechanic, he wanted to show me a sparkplug. Here is how he did it.

Needle nose vise-grips and a screwdriver, if memory serves me. He just clamped on the metal edge of the plug receptacle, then used the screwdriver shank to lever the receptacle off the plug. In other words, the screwdriver goes under the vise-grip, then push the vise-grip handle down with the shank as the fulcrum. One pop and it comes off.

Steve