Rockspirea. Bonsai Material?

[Godschick]

So my neighbor, knowing that I love all things plants, trees and bonsai, asked me if I’d help him with one of his potted plants that he wanted to repot. He did not know what it was and come to find out it’s a shrub, Rockspirea. Lo and behold there’s a lot more work needed than just repotting. I started doing some pruning, a tad bit of root work and placed it in the pot. It definitely still needs a lot more work and different substrate than what he provided. I plan on finishing a little bit of work on it tomorrow. But I wanted to get some opinions here on if this would make a good bonsai? I did a little Google search and I found a couple things, but nothing that suggests it would be wonderful. If you think so, what would be my next steps? He said if I wanted to create a Bonsai out of it I could go ahead and keep it. Thank you in advance for any input and direction!!

 

[rollwithak]

 

[plant_dr]

Well it definitely has a good chunky trunk with some taper and movement. If you could chase the foliage back toward the trunk, eliminate those really thick branches, and build some ramification, you could have a sumo style tree going on.

 

[Adamski77]

I think it will come down to back budding... solid piece of trunk but you need foliage so much closer to it. Normally shrubs would do it quite easily but this one seems to be growing out only.