Angel Garza
Humberto Garza Solano (born September 23, 1992) is a Mexican professional wrestler. He is currently signed to WWE, where he performs on the Raw brand under the ring name Angel Garza.[2]
He is a third-generation wrestler, the grandson of luchador Mario Segura, known as El Ninja. From his debut in 2008 until 2015, Garza worked under the name El Hijo del Ninja (“The Son of the Ninja”). He is the nephew of Héctor Garza and Humberto Garza Jr. and the grand-nephew of Humberto Segura Garza. He is the cousin of fellow WWE wrestler Humberto Carrillo, who was his tag team partner in Mexico. Garza originally worked as an enmascarado, or masked wrestler, but voluntarily unmasked in 2012 in the series finale of a dating reality show and has worked unmasked ever since.
As Garza Jr., he previously worked for Impact Wrestling in the United States, for Lucha Libre AAA Worldwide, and on the Mexican independent circuit for a number of promotions including The Crash Lucha Libre. Garza Jr., along with Penta el 0M, Rey Fénix and Daga formed La Rebelión on the independent circuit after leaving Lucha Libre AAA Worldwide. He signed with WWE in 2019 and was assigned to the NXT brand, wrestled under his current ring name, where he was a one-time NXT Cruiserweight Champion.
Garza was trained by his grandfather Mario Segura as well as El Hijo del Gladiador prior to his lucha libre debut on November 8, 2008, using the ring name El Hijo del Ninja (“The Son of the Ninja”), an enmascarado, or masked wrestling character.[1] Initially he worked for Federacion Internacional de Lucha Libre (FILL) as they promoted shows in his native Monterrey, Nuevo León. On August 25, 2009 El Hijo del Ninja won the 2009 Copa Arena Coliseo Monterrey defeating Pee-Wee, Kaientai, Angel Dorada Jr. and Hombre Sin Miedo in succession to win the cup.[6] He followed up his tournament victory by winning the FILL Light Heavyweight Championship that same year.[6] He would win his first Lucha de Apuestas, or “bet match”, on September 30, 2009 when he defeated Black Morse, forcing him to unmask as a result of the stipulation.[6] A Lucha de Apuestas win is generally considered a bigger achievement than a championship victory and is an indicator of a promotional “push”.[7] He would close out the year in another Lucha de Apuestas match, this time a Relevos Suicida where he teamed up with Silver Star to face the team of Memo Valles and Coco Viper. Since both El Hijo del Ninja and Memo Valles were pinned in the match the two were forced to wrestle each other risking El Hijo del Ninja’s mask and Memo Valles hair. With the victory El Hijo del Ninja forced Memo Valles to have all his hair shaved off.[6] In 2010 he won another Lucha de Apuestas, forcing Estrella Dorada Jr. to have all his hair shaved off.[8] In 2011 El Hijo del Ninja won the FILL Rey del Aire (“King of the Air”) tournament.[9]
By the late fall of 2011 a new promotion began holding shows in Monterrey, Llaves y Candados (LyC), taking over running shows in Arena Coliseo Monterrey.[9] On September 18 of that year El Hijo del Ninja won the LyC Championship.[9] He would later give up the championship as the promotion abandoned it.[10] In 2012 El Hijo del Ninja participated in a Mexican dating reality TV show called Mitad y Mitad: Lucha por el Amor (“Half and Half: Fight for Love”), where he voluntarily unmasked in the show finale, taking the El Hijo del Ninja mask off on national television to publicly show his face for the first time during his professional wrestling career.[5] From that point on he would wrestle without a mask. The TV show appearance led to a feud with local celebrity/wrestler Konan Big, a storyline feud that led to a Lucha de Apuestas match between the two. It was originally scheduled to be a one-on-one match where El Hijo del Ninja “bet” his hair while Konan Big “bet” his wife on the outcome of the match. During the lead up to the match itself both Silencio and Konan Big’s show, El Hijo de Konan Big got involved, turning it into a four-way steel cage match. Silencio was the first wrestler to leave the cage, followed by Konan Big. In the end El Hijo del Ninja managed to escape the cage, forcing El Hijo de Konan Big to have all his hair shaved off.[11]
