Genki Horiguchi

Hiromasa Horiguchi (堀口博正) is a Japanese professional wrestler, better known by the ring name Genki Horiguchi (堀口元気).

He is currently a full-time wrestler for Dragon Gate.

He has also competed in Wrestling Society X and Ring of Honor.

When Horiguchi's hairline began receding, the fans began to chant H-A-G-E (hage (禿) being Japanese for "baldness") at him.

He managed to use this to gain a sort of cult popularity, and his catchphrase, "Who has called me hage?", is one of the best known in Japan.

Hiromi Horiguchi, a wrestler currently working for Toryumon Mexico, was thought for some time to be Genki's brother, but the relationship was only a gimmick.

Horiguchi debuted in Toryumon as a face wrestler with a surfer gimmick.

In 2001, he began to lose his hair, and in November he turned heel, cast away his surfer gimmick, and he joined the original M2K as a replacement for Chocoflake K-ICHI.

He was the last wrestler to be added to the group.

During his days in the M2K stable, he held the NWA World Welterweight Title twice, defeating Ryo Saito to win it, vacating the title after a no-contest match with Dragon Kid, defeating Ricky Marvin to win it again, and finally losing it to M2K stablemate Darkness Dragon.

As part of Do FIXER, he won the UWA World Trios Titles with Susumu Yokosuka and Ryo Saito.

He was responsible for bringing in Magnum Tokyo to lead the remnants of M2K after the name was sealed.

In 2002, he would team with Magnum Tokyo and Darkness Dragon in a three-way trios tag team match against Ryo Saito, Masaaki Mochizuki & Dragon Kid and CIMA, Don Fujii & Yoshikazu Taru and was pinned by CIMA.

In Spring 2003, he scored a series of upset wins, most of them via backslide.

This led to the rise of his finisher, the Backslide from Heaven.

While in Do FIXER, he formed a friendship with Ryo Saito that would endure for several years.

He teamed with Saito to defeat The Florida Brothers at the 2004 Revolucion ppv event on January 31, 2004.

He, Saito and Dragon Kid would win the Open the Triangle Gate Championship three times while teaming together in Do FIXER.

The three of them would travel to Ring of Honor to take part in a match against Blood Generation's CIMA, Naruki Doi & Masato Yoshino, which would be given a rare five-star rating by famous wrestling columnist Dave Meltzer.

In January 2007, he betrayed Saito and Do FIXER to join heel stable Muscle Outlaw'z.

He underwent a radical transformation in appearance, and added blue mist to his arsenal.

This turn lead him to an Open the Brave Gate title run, and a pinfall victory over CIMA in an 8-man elimination match (incidentally not his first direct win over CIMA).

He feuded with gaijin Matt Sydal over the title before dropping it to Yasushi Kanda.

After dropping the title, his push was not maintained.

He began wrestling mainly early on the cards, taking the falls in multi-person matches, and was winless during all of March 2008.

He began to develop kleptomania, stealing Tozawa-juku's pants and Anthony W. Mori's ring costume.

During the unit turmoil in the early parts of 2008, Horiguchi remained firmly on the heel side of Muscle Outlaw'z, and followed them to Real Hazard.

He acted as secretary to the Brave Gate belt commissioner Yoshito Sugamoto, which was actually the Brave Gate champion (and his fellow MO'z stablemate) Gamma himself, enforcing the outrageous rules randomly put in place by him that allowed Gamma to win title matches or retain his title if he lost the match.

On July 27, 2008, Horiguchi defeated m.c.KZ to win the vacant Open the Brave Gate title for a second time.

Despite the title win, his push was not increased, as he did not score any wins over any wrestler in higher standing than he had been previously.

He defended it twice before losing it to Masato Yoshino on October 12, and then went right back to taking the falls in most multi-person matches for the remainder of 2008 and into 2009.

When Ryo Saito turned heel in February 2009 and joined Real Hazard, he and Horiguchi began teaming again.

On May 5, they won the Open the Twin Gate Championship from Susumu Yokosuka & Gamma in a Three-Way Match, which included fellow Real Hazard stablemates Kenichiro Arai & Yasushi Kanda.

They would hold them until September 17, when they lost them to Shingo Takagi & YAMATO.

Afterwards, Horiguchi was relatively quiet again.

He unsuccessfully challenged Naoki Tanizaki in the fall of 2009 for the Open the Brave Gate Championship.

On January 10, 2010, Horiguchi put out a blog where he stated that Real Hazard would win more matches via teamwork instead of illegal tactics and weapons play in 2010.

He would prove to be a man of his word that day when he stopped Yasushi Kanda from using a blue box in a tag team match they had.

Though they still won, his actions caused him and Kanda to begin bickering.

The bickering intensified the following day, when Kanda made him lose a tag team match by accidentally hitting him.