Masato Shibata (柴田 正人,Shibata Masato; born September 13, 1978) is aJapaneseprofessional wrestler primarily working forDDT Pro-Wrestling (DDT), where he competes as part of theDamnation T.A unit under the ring nameMJ Paul (MJポー,Emu Jē Pō). He was previously known under the nameMad Paulie (マッド・ポーリー,Maddo Pōrī).
After training atKiyoshi Tamura's U-File Camp, Shibata debuted in December 2003 and primarily competed in Style-E for the next few years. In March 2007, he received his first opportunity at the Style-E Openweight Championship, unsuccessfully challengingIsami Kodaka.[5] In December, he once again challenged for the title, this time losing toKazuhiro Tamura.[6] In March 2012, Shibata teamed up with Shota to unsuccessfully challenge DDT'sSanshiro Takagi and Soma Takao for theKO-D Tag Team Championship. In June, Shibata once again unsuccessfully challenged for the Style-E Openweight Championship, losing to Kenichiro Arai.[7] In September, Shibata won Apache Pro Wrestling's WEW Tag Team Championship, teaming with Kotaru Nasu to defeat Kengo Nishimura and Tomohiko Hashimoto,[8] but lost the championship to Hashimoto and Shoichi Imiya two weeks later.[9]
Shibata in 2015
In January 2015, Shibata teamed withShuji Ishikawa to capture the UWA World Tag Team Championship, defeating Isami Kodaka and Fuma in overtime.[10] The duo lost the championship to theBrahman Brothers in June.[11]
Shibata began competing in DDT sporadically in 2008, mainly in their sister promotion Union Pro, but in April 2016, Shibata became a regular in DDT, changing his name toMad Paulie and aligning himself withDaisuke Sasaki as Sasaki's "pet". In his first match as Paulie, Shibata and Sasaki defeatedYukio Sakaguchi andMasa Takanashi.[12] Soon after, Sasaki and Paulie were joined by Shuji Ishikawa, with Sasaki calling Ishikawa his other "pet". The trio dubbed themselves "Damnation", and in July added a fourth member to their ranks whenTetsuya Endo turned on his partnerKonosuke Takeshita to join. In August, Paulie, Sasaki, and Endo entered the tournament for the vacantKO-D 6 Man Tag Team Championship, defeating Shuten-dōji (Sakaguchi, Takanashi and Kota Umeda) in the final to win the tournament and the championship.[13] On October 10, they made their first successful defence, defeating Happy Motel (Antonio Honda and Konosuke Takeshita) and Mike Bailey,[14] but dropped the championship to Shuten-dōji (Takanashi, Sakaguchi andKudo) on November 11.[15]
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