Hiroshi Tanahashi To Miss Upcoming NJPW Shows Due To Injury

"The Ace" is out of commission for the foreseeable future. NJPW announced on Tuesday that Hiroshi Tanahashi suffered a rib injury during his match at Capital Collision earlier this month, which led to his absence from the subsequent event in Philadelphia. 

According to NJPW, a medical examination has determined that Tanahashi will be out of action for the "Road to Dontaku Series" which gets underway this week in Nara, Japan. NPW's statement added that a "return date [is] to be determined" for Tanahashi, while also apologizing to fans who were looking forward to seeing the veteran wrestler compete. 

As a result of the injury, Tanahashi has been replaced by Tomoaki Honma in the previously announced eight-man match pitting CHAOS (Kazuchika Okada, Tomohiro Ishii, and Toru Yano) and Tanahashi against Strong Style (El Desperado, Minoru Suzuki, and Ren Narita) and Hiroyoshi Tenzan. 

Honma will be teaming up with CHAOS at the upcoming "Road to Dontaku Series" shows. Okada and Tanahashi, a pair of long-time rivals, had developed an on-screen alliance following their clash at NJPW's Battle In The Valley event back in February. Following their main event bout, Okada urged Tanahashi to team with him and pursue tag team gold. 

The proposition set up an Okada and Tanahashi versus Hirooki Goto and YOSHI-HASHI match for the IWGP World Tag Team Titles at NJPW's 51st Anniversary Event last month. After coming up short, Okada and Tanahashi targeted the NJPW STRONG Openweight Tag Team titles at Capital Collison, where they challenged The Motor City Machine Guns and Aussie Open in a three-way bout. However, they failed to win gold again as Aussie Open prevailed victorious at the event in Washington, D.C. 

Fans on social media have been particularly excited about the Okada-Tanahashi alliance and hope to see more of the same upon Tanahashi's return from injury.