Hideki Hosaka

###

Itoigawa, Niigata, Japan

**Hideki Hosaka** (保坂 秀樹, *Hosaka Hideki*) (August 5, 1971 – August 2, 2021) was a Japanese professional wrestler, who was best known for his work in Frontier Martial-Arts Wrestling, All Japan Pro Wrestling, and Pro Wrestling Zero-One.

## Career

### Early career (1991–1993)

An amateur wrestler in his scholastic years, he enrolled in Submission Arts Wrestling in May 1990. After over a year of training, he joined Wrestling International New Generations (W\*ING) in August 1991. In W\*ING he trained with wrestlers including The Great Wojo, TNT, and Mr. Pogo. In 1992, he left W\*ING and joined the Takano Brothers' Pro Wrestling Crusaders, under the ring name Benkei. As PWC did not run regular shows, he transferred to Frontier Martial-Arts Wrestling (FMW) a year later.

### Promoted career (1993–2004)

Hosaka made his debut for FMW in 1993, siding with his W\*ING friends Mr. Pogo and Mitsuhiro Matsunaga. He competed against Atsushi Onita in several street fights and deathmatches for well over a year. In February 1995 he won his first championship, the FMW Independent World Junior Heavyweight Championship, by defeating Ricky Fuji. He reigned as champion for two months, before losing the title to Koji Nakagawa. During his time in FMW, he also wrestled on various W\*ING Reunion shows. In September 1997, the W\*ING faction disbanded, due to W\*ING Kanemura's loss to Onita, as Hosaka joined Onita and Kanemura to form a group called ZEN. In May 1998, he wrestle his first match for All Japan Pro Wrestling at their Tokyo Dome show. After ZEN disbanded in May 1998, he joined Onita's Team Zero, until Onita finally left the promotion in November 1998. That same month, he wrestled a match for Battlarts. In 2000, he won three WEW Hardcore Tag Team Championships with Mammoth Sasaki, before leaving FMW in 2001 in an exodus that also included Masato Tanaka, Jado, Gedo, and Kaori Nakayama.

After wrestling a couple of W\*ING Reunion shows in April 2001, Hosaka joined All Japan Pro Wrestling as a freelancer, before signing with the company in 2002. In 2003, he would balance his time in AJPW with Pro Wrestling Zero-One. By 2004, he was back wrestling solely for AJPW, but a major knee injury forced him out of action and he left AJPW.

### Freelance (2006–2019)

After fully recovering from his knee injury, Hosaka returned to the ring as a freelancer, which include stints in Wrestling Marvelous Future, Team Vader, and Ice Ribbon, before retiring in February 2008.

In 2010, Hosaka came out of retirement and returned to the ring as a freelancer, aligned with Atsushi Onita and Ichiro Yaguchi. The trio wrestled for multiple promotions including Zero1, Kaientai Dojo, Pro Wrestling FREEDOMS and Pro Wrestling Noah. Hosaka held the Niigata Openweight Championship for three years from December 2013 to December 2016. He was a regular for the revived FMW known as "Chō Sentō Puroresu FMW" until the promotion stopped promoting events in early 2018. After the death of his mentor Mr. Pogo in June 2017, he wrestled a tour for the resurrected FMW as Mr. Pogo, as a tribute to his mentor. He would later retire from wrestling in 2019.

## Political career

On October 16, 2016, Hosaka announced that he was running for the City Council for the Sodeguara District in Chiba.

## Illness and death

On October 21, 2019, Hosaka announced that in the month prior, he was diagnosed with Stage-IV colon and liver cancer. After nearly two years battling cancer, Hosaka died on August 2, 2021, just three days shy of his 50th birthday.

## In wrestling

* **Finishing move**
	+ *Building Bomb* (Elevated sitout powerbomb)
* **Signature moves**
	+ Hurricanrana

## Championships and accomplishments

* **Frontier Martial-Arts Wrestling / World Entertainment Wrestling**
	+ FMW Independent World Junior Heavyweight Championship (1 time)
	+ FMW World Street Fight 6-Man Tag Team Championship (2 times) - with Atsushi Onita and Masato Tanaka (1), and Atsushi Onita and Sean Guinness (1)
	+ WEW Hardcore Tag Team Championship (3 times) – with Yoshinori/Mammoth Sasaki
* **Niigata Pro Wrestling**
	+ Niigata Openweight Championship (1 time)