10 Wrestlers Who Left And Returned More Badass
5. Katsuyori Shibata
Katsuyori Shibata left New Japan Pro Wrestling in 2005 under infamously controversial circumstances.
Pegged alongside Hiroshi Tanahashi and Shinsuke Nakamura as one of the three New Musketeers who would restore the company to old glory, he wasn't as committed. The preternaturally gifted worker left to pursue his MMA career, but was perceived in insider circles as a rat, before making his controversial return in 2012 at a time when the slide had been arrested by his two peers. This pissed Tanahashi off, and his ire was intensified by the ring style Shibata brought back with him.
Tanahashi's vast charisma and spellbinding storytelling ability enabled NJPW to reach a new audience rapt by his approach. Where Tanahashi restored NJPW's commercial fortunes, Shibata, an Inoki disciple, restored the company's dormant house style. His work was so brutal as to be harrowing; his pelting kicks and gunshot headbutts were sickening, but formed grisly, totally absorbing spectacles that left fans in a state of adulation. The black sheep, to them, was a dangerous and captivating performer able to throw back to the days of strong style with such squelching authenticity that they almost seemed quaint.
Those styles met in anxious, emotional and seminal fashion at Destruction in 2014. Tanahashi won the battle, but gauging by Shibata's ascent and the wider stiffness of NJPW's subsequent style, lost the philosophical war.