El Desperado will be out of action for the foreseeable future, as announced by the man himself. NJPW issued the following:
El Desperado today announced on YouTube (subtitled version to follow) that he was taking a leave of absence from the ring to have surgery to repair a media meniscus injury that has affected him for the last six months.
‘Everything from my back to my nipples has holes in after I wrestled Chris Brookes yesterday, but this is nothing to do with that,’ joked the Best of the Super Jr. winner before explaining that when the ‘adrenaline switch’ should be on during his matches, working around the injury was preventing that and that he wanted to be at his strongest ‘giving absolutely all I can’. Desperado cited winning the IWGP Junior Heavyweight Championship on night one of the New Japan Soul series only to lose it right at the end of the tour to DOUKI as a message that surgery was the right call.
Desperado stated that with the G1 Climax seeing heavyweights take center stage, everything aligned for him to take time off after wrestling Chris Brookes. Desperado stated that he still gave it all he had in the first half of the year and was satisfied with his performance, but with a view to continuing to operate at ‘over 100%’ the time had come to take surgery and take an indefinite leave before returning ‘to take the title back, win next year’s Best of the Super Jr. and do more things to inspire’.