Umm he needed saving by Asuma in that 8v1
Only after it became a 9v1.
and it wasn't that short of time between the two fights (sasuke fought, the invasion started, and he played sleep for a while)....
"Just like I thought, this match really was a mistake... I used up too much chakra"
Yes u are wrong so I will correct u, Shikamaru won only 1 solo fight (the sound chick in the preliminaries), the hidan fight he had help (Choji, Ino, & Kakashi).....
Unless Choji Ino and Kakashi were somehow influencing the fight from a mile away, the Hidan fight was a 1v1.
Neji has won 2 seen (Hinata, and Kidomaru, and the one against himself if u want to include that one) and we hear of him beating Lee.....
Sparring doesn't count. You're right though, for some reason I thought one of the sand ninja helped in the Kidomaru fight. My bad. Still, they're even in 1v1 fights, which still isn't even the point. The point is that Shikamaru is fully capable of handling himself in a 1v1 fight.
As for the shadows I know the closer the stronger, but it only locks the limbs (which is y they can still talk afterwards)...point being that a full body blow (which comes from within) would hurt Shikamaru and cancel the shadow possession and on top of that leave him in range of the 8 trigrams...and I'm sure even u know what happens next
It might cancel the shadow imitation technique, but so what? Shadow sewing is already on its way by that point. As for it hurting him? No. 8 trigrams? Not enough time... and why would Shikamaru even been in range of that? He's going to kill him, not give him a hug.