Masato Shibata (柴田 正人, Shibata Masato, born September 13, 1978) is a Japaneseprofessional wrestler primarily working for DDT Pro-Wrestling (DDT), where he competes as part of the Damnation T.A unit under the ring name MJ Paul (MJポー, Emu Jē Pō). He was previously known under the name Mad Paulie (マッド・ポーリー, Maddo Pōrī).
Professional wrestling career
Style-E, IGF and BJW (2003–2016)
After training at Kiyoshi 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 challenging Isami Kodaka.[5] In December, he once again challenged for the title, this time losing to Kazuhiro Tamura.[6] In March 2012, Shibata teamed up with Shota to unsuccessfully challenge DDT's Sanshiro Takagi and Soma Takao for the KO-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 with Shuji Ishikawa to capture the UWA World Tag Team Championship, defeating Isami Kodaka and Fuma in overtime.[10] The duo lost the championship to the Brahman Brothers in June.[11]
DDT (2008–present)
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 to Mad Paulie and aligning himself with Daisuke Sasaki as Sasaki's "pet". In his first match as Paulie, Shibata and Sasaki defeated Yukio Sakaguchi and Masa 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 when Tetsuya Endo turned on his partner Konosuke Takeshita to join. In August, Paulie, Sasaki, and Endo entered the tournament for the vacant KO-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 and Kudo) on November 11.[15]
