NJPW Star Suffers Eye Injury During Australian Tour – Removed From Upcoming Anniversary Series Events

New Japan Pro Wrestling has announced that EVIL has suffered an injury during the company’s tour of Australia.

EVIL apparently suffered a fracture to his left orbital bone during the NJPW’s Australian Tour this past weekend. NJPW has removed EVIL from the NJPW Anniversary Series, and the Anniversary event on March 6th.

Below is New Japan’s official announcement regarding EVIL’s injury and removal from the upcoming Anniversary series dates. NJPW also announced the replacement match for the event:

During NJPW’s tour of Australia this past weekend, EVIL suffered a fracture to his left orbital bone. As a result of his injury, EVIL has been removed from the NJPW Anniversary series, and the Anniversary Event on March 6. We apologize to fans who were looking forward to seeing EVIL on the upcoming tour, and appreciate your understanding. We are unable to give an exact return date for EVIL at this time, and cards will undergo changes to reflect his absence.

As a result of EVIL suffering a fractured orbital bone, the tag match scheduled for March 6’s Anniversary show featuring EVIL and SANADA against YOSHI-HASHI and Hirooki Goto has now been changed to a special single match with SANADA facing YOSHI-HASHI.

These two have a deep connection to one another, having attempted to take the NJPW tryout test on the same day: November 3, 2005. SANADA took a circuitous route to eventually debuting in New Japan, joining Los Ingobernables De Japon in April 2016. His appearance immediately drew YOSHI-HASHI’s ire, and the two were embroiled in several tag matches. This included YOSHI-HASHI scoring a memorable submission win over SANADA in a tag bout in Osaka Jo Hall that year via his Butterfly Lock.

On March 12 last year in Hyogo, the two finally faced each other one on one for the first time. Then, SANADA got the tap out victory with Skull End. The LIJ member has the 1-0 singles edge. Yet while YOSHI-HASHI suffered defeat at the hands of Tetsuya Naito at the New Beginning in Osaka, he bounced back, beating EVIL in Okinawa on February 14 with his new pinning combination, the Kinkoji. With renewed momentum, YOSHI-HASHI could right his record with SANADA, but Cold Skull has his own wrongs to right after a hard fought defeat against Kazuchika Okada on February 10.