Katsuyori Shibata vs. TARU

[6.0] "TARU was always protected in terms of wrestling workrate: he was never really that good but usually could function fine enough as a upper-card heel if the cards were played right and he was with a babyface who could work around him. In essence, TARU is basically EVIL if EVIL was done right and wasn't so goofy. The formula is pretty simple: Shibata is the hometown hero defending the honor of Big Mouth, TARU is the cheating bastard that uses the Voodoo Murders to prop up his chances here, as well as a lot of stalling outside and shit talking. The issue is that this also tries to be played off as a legitimate contest here when TARU's offence looks like ass in comparison to Shibata's fantastic elbows, kicks, or giant dropkicks. This isn't that bad as TARU quickly cheats to gain advantages here, but still. That's basically the narrative of the whole match: TARU gets wrecked a bit, cheats or uses interference, Shibata gets worked over until clawing back to offence, etc. In all fairness, this formula works, the crowd gets going when Shibata does recover, but you never really buy that this goof can actually defeat Shibata, especially when him on top is so boring. This ends in a fuck finish after TARU just doesn't care anymore and gets his lads to hit Shibata with a chair, which causes the DQ victory. Shibata naturally no sells and starts beating them up right afterwards and hits a PK, which the owner counts the fall as a symbolic victory, albeit doesn't make much sense but eh. This isn't really much of a match as it is a section of heat spots but hey, it worked, so no harm done. At least TARU has multiple ways of cheating and interference (as compared to certain other workers that shall be unnamed) and does sell well at the high points, but for actual wrestling this was a big lull that didn't really get good at any spot."