Go Shiozaki

Go Shiozaki (潮﨑 豪) is a Japanese professional wrestler currently signed to Pro Wrestling Noah.

He is a record-holding five time former GHC Heavyweight Champion.

Shiozaki entered the Pro Wrestling Noah dojo in 2003 and according to the commentators from the event Universal Uproar, was the only man to graduate in his class as well as being the youngest wrestler on the roster.

Following his debut, Shiozaki became a protégé of the legendary Kenta Kobashi.

Shiozaki and Kobashi formed a very successful tag team and the biggest match the two had as a team was a losing effort against Kensuke Sasaki and his own protégé, Katsuhiko Nakajima.

The match reached critical acclaim, being given a near-perfect rating from the Wrestling Observer Newsletter.

He made his debut for the Pro Wrestling Noah in July 2004 and initially remained with Pro Wrestling Noah until the end of 2012 when he jumped to All Japan Pro Wrestling (AJPW).

In the beginning of 2006, Shiozaki fractured his jaw against Kenta.

Following his recovery, he began wrestling matches against the biggest names of the company and despite losing to them, he would put forth a valiant effort against them, similar to how Kobashi competed in All Japan Pro Wrestling.

After Kobashi was forced out of action due to cancer, Shiozaki teamed briefly with Tamon Honda but was again defeated by Noah's top wrestlers until he finally broke his losing streak by pinning Ricky Marvin.

In late April 2007, Shiozaki represented Noah in the prestigious King of Europe Cup.

He defeated Real Quality Wrestling representative Martin Stone in the first round before falling to Pro Wrestling Guerrilla representative Davey Richards in the quarterfinals.

Shiozaki returned to Noah in mid-2009 and gained a significant push as Mitsuharu Misawa's new tag team partner.

They soon won the Global Tag League in May and thus became the top contenders to the GHC Tag Team Championship.

During their title match on June 13 against champions Akitoshi Saito and Bison Smith, Misawa suffered a cervical spinal cord trauma during the match after receiving a belly to back suplex from Saito.

After Misawa remained motionless following the suplex, officials quickly tended to him before he was taken to a hospital, where he died later on.

On June 14, reigning GHC Heavyweight Champion Jun Akiyama was forced to vacate the title due to herniated discs in his back.

As a result, Shiozaki was nominated by Akiyama to wrestle for the title against the number one contender Takeshi Rikio.

After a hard-fought twenty-minute match, Shiozaki managed to defeat Rikio to become the new GHC Heavyweight Champion.

He then went on to successfully defend his title for the first time on September 27 against Akitoshi Saito.

However his second title defense was unsuccessful as on December 6, Shiozaki lost the World Heavyweight title to Takashi Sugiura on the last date of the 2009 Winter Navigation tour.

On May 23, 2010 Shiozaki teamed up with Atsushi Aoki to defeat Takeshi Morishima and Taiji Ishimori to win the AAA World Tag Team Championship during Pro Wrestling Noah's Navigation with Breeze show in Niigata, Niigata, Japan.

As a result of the victory, Shiozaki and Aoki were scheduled to defend the title during AAA's Triplemania XVIII show.

At TripleMania, Shiozaki and Aoki were the first team eliminated when Joe Lider pinned Shiozaki.

The match and the title were ultimately won by Los Maniacos (Silver Cain and Último Gladiador).

In AJPW, he became a one-time Triple Crown Heavyweight Champion and a two-time World Tag Team Champion, before resigning from the promotion in September 2015.

Afterwards, he returned to Noah, where, in May 2016, he won the GHC Heavyweight Championship for the third time.

He has also worked for American promotions Ring of Honor (ROH) and Full Impact Pro (FIP), winning the latter's World Heavyweight Championship.

In August 2016, Shiozaki was appointed the chairman of Noah's wrestlers' association.

Go was born as the third and youngest child in the family, with one older brother and sister.

Due to the influence of his older brother who was a professional wrestling fan, he began to watch professional wrestling, especially All Japan Pro-Wrestling on TV from the second grade of elementary school, and became a fan of the Super Generation Army.

In youth he would play baseball, which he started in the third grade of elementary school, he served as a catcher who was assigned the 4th and 5th batters  and won the eastern district of Kumamoto, his hometown.

Similarly, in elementary school, he played against Miho Koga ,a female professional golfer who was the fourth baseball player in Ace and later became a junior in the first grade of Tokai University, in a youth baseball game.

At Kumamoto City Nishihara Junior High School, he joined the basketball club, served as a center forward in the position, and was appointed captain in the third year.

Even after going on to high school, he continued to play basketball, becoming a regular player from the second year and achieving the best four in Kumamoto Prefecture.

After graduating from high school, he failed to take the police recruitment exam and lived a freeter life while attending a civil servant prep school.

One day, he heard on TV that Mitsuharu Misawa, the founder of Pro Wrestling Noah said, "Anyone can be a professional wrestler if he has the guts."

One day while reading the back of the "Weekly Wrestling" magazine, he saw an article about Kenta Kobayashi (later KENTA).

The article would mention that Kobayashi had passed the AJPW rookie test, without having any background in martial arts, something Shiozaki was lacking as well.

Go would later mention that this article would inspire him, and this was when he began thinking of becoming a professional wrestler.