RPW Undisputed British Championship

 

As one would expect, this match is worked super stiff. However, they start things off with Shibata working over the left arm of Hero. When they start getting into the elbow and chops, Hero leans his forehead onto Shibata's daring him to come at him hard. Shibata delivers some stiff blows, then Hero gives him a nice/quick slap in the face. Loved it. Then it's Hero's turn, which he takes with a big boot knocking Shibata to the outside. We get some nice back and forth hard-hitting action on the outside. Hero is more dominant here, leaving Shibata to fight from underneath. Shibata then goes into Terminator mode taking each shot, but walking slowly towards Hero, taking the pain, but pushing forward. It's a trading of hard-hitting maneuvers and strikes from that point on. This is a fun, but sort of quick match. I really enjoyed it. I thought they had really good chemistry, and with a longer match, these two would probably tell a great story.

After an early sleeper doesn't go anywhere, Shibata tries to neutralize Hero's arm in an attempt to disable his strikes. This ends up failing and Hero is soon striking Shibata all around the ring area. These two aren't holding anything back and the strikes here are disgustingly brutal. Shibata sold Hero's Piledrivers like death. This reminded me of a big Ishii bombfest, but with more story and meaning. Ishii also wishes he was as charismatic as Shibata was when he made his comeback, the guy looked like a fucking rockstar.★★★★¾