Awards and Recognition

None

Notable Matches

September 3rd, 2006 vs. Scorpio
July 3rd, 2007 with Kawabata vs. Jun Akiyama and Taniguchi

Other Pictures

Shiga with a Back Breaker
A Wrist-Clutch Slam by Shiga

Career Recap:

Shiga was injured for most of 2005, but finally made his return on September 18th.  He would lose the match to Honda, but the fans were glad to see him back.  For the rest of 2005, Shiga wrestled mostly in tag matches at the bottom of the card, as he worked off the ring rust from his long stint away from the ring.

Still trying to regain the ground he lost when he was out due to injuries, Shiga stayed towards the beginning of cards for the first half of the year. He became (oddly) popular with the crowd however, including having his own fan section, and this helped him get a title shot on September 3rd against Scorpio for the GHC Hardcore Openweight Championship. Shockingly, Shiga scored the upset with a jackknife hold, and finally after debuting 12 years earlier Shiga won his first title in Japan. He successfully defended the title against Kishin Kawabata, Ippei Ota, and Kamikaze in 2006, and as the year ended he was still the champion.

Shiga continued having mid-card success in 2007 as he formed a new tag team with Kawabata. Called the Pen Pals, they became joint GHC Hardcore Openweight Champions on February 17th when they defeated Go Shiozaki and Shuhei Taniguchi in the tournament finals. Over the next eight months they successfully defended the title three times, showing their dominance as a tag team. By November they decided that they both couldn't hold the title and on 19th they had a match to find the true owner. Kawabata would win the match and become the sole holder of the GHC Hardcore Openweight Championship, but afterwards Shiga would go back to teaming with Kawabata even though they no longer defended the titles together.

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