User blog comment:Xilinoc/Ch. 562 - THE VILLAIN 2 (Mask De Masculine is a Mexican luchador in a German army)/@comment-5551986-20131219180832

Still though, Mask has herculean strength, and Renji's surpasses even that, quite notable. But a reason why I felt Renji was much stronger, is that Mask (even though he surprised Renji) more or less nearly killed him in one, "non-superstar powered" hit before. And now he has been seemingly powered up even more and Renji just scoffs at him and makes me wonder about his real power. Fair enough, its not that he surpasses the power of a captain yet. The only reason I thought so was Rukia's comment on that Renji "is enough", without her even (seemingly) gauging Mask's power, now the old Rukia would have been pretty Flabbergasted seeing one guy bring down two bankai wielding captains so easily, and would have probably told Renji to scram, its safe to say shes improved some too. (Obviously)

Granted, I am probably most definitely wrong about Renji's "captain super-power-up" but if Mask can block a hit from a Bankai wielding shinigami captain with his hand, considering that shinigami is a Hakuda specialist, and Renji made him cough blood from one elbow is pretty serious, even considering strength. But "she'et" due to story progression I wouldn't be surprised if Renji was on par with other captains.