Francesco Akira is out with a major injury.
The New Japan Pro Wrestling star confirmed this past week that he’s officially undergone surgery after suffering a right wrist fracture during his match against Leon Slater Revolution Pro Wrestling’s Global Wars UK event in London back on August 22.
“I had surgery last Friday, and it went smoothly. It was really painful, but from now on, I’ll focus on recovering little by little and come back even stronger! Thank you for your support!,” he wrote.
At this time, it’s unknown how long Francesco will be out of action. The New Japan star made his debut for the promotion on March 2022 in Will Ospreay’s United Empire. It didn’t take long for him to win a belt as Francesco and former WWE star TJP won the IWGP Junior Heavyweight titles in June. The duo would continue to team together for years and won the IWGP Junior Heavyweight Tag Team titles on three separate occasions. The 25-year-old still remained in the group once Will Ospreay left, though the prominence of the United Empire dwindled.
However, once TJP left (who opted to not renew his New Japan contract due to various reasons including financial) the group diminished even further down the ranks of New Japan. Since June, Francesco has been working as a singles star. During a recent interview with Monthly Puroresu, Francesco laid out what he wanted to accomplish.
“I think so. As right now, I’m the only member of the United Empire in. There’s one guy from CMLL. I don’t know if it’s Templario or not yet, but like I’m the only member. So, I have a lot of my shoulders. I’m going to represent United Empire. So, from this year, I wanted to be like, of course, I want to win.
But more than that, I want to show what I can really be able to do. I did show it against Desperado in my match in March. I earned his respect. Now it’s my time to like, earn everybody’s respect and put myself on the map again. And like we need or not winning. It does. It’s not really what matters. But like being the MVP of the tournament is what I want.”
It’s quite possible that Francesco could turn up for the World Tag League, but as of now, his plans of winning a tournament seemed dashed.