Machine translation:

New Japan Pro Wrestling’s “World Tag League” concluded its final at the Kumamoto event on the 8th, where the team of Tetsuya Naito (42) and Hiromu Takahashi (35), ranked first in Block B, defeated the Block A leaders Gabe Kidd (27) and SANADA (36) to claim their first championship. A long-awaited showdown between mentor and protégé is now set for January 4th at the Tokyo Dome. Ahead of this pivotal match, Naito revealed his decision to undergo a fourth eye surgery, something previously thought impossible.

The championship match was an intense, back-and-forth battle. Naito eliminated Gabe with a Destino, leaving Hiromu in a one-on-one against SANADA. Hiromu secured the victory with his signature unnamed Hiromu Roll, pinning SANADA for the three-count. After the match, Naito proposed a singles match against Hiromu at the January 4th Dome event, fulfilling a dream matchup that was initially planned for March 2020 but canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

As Naito prepares for this significant bout in his wrestling career, he has made a major decision. He will undergo urgent surgery to address the superior oblique muscle paralysis in his right eye, a condition that has plagued him since 2019.

The condition, which impairs the muscle responsible for downward diagonal movement of the eye, has caused recurring double vision (diplopia). Despite three prior surgeries, the last one in November 2022 yielded unsatisfactory results. Naito reflected on a difficult year in which he lost the IWGP World Heavyweight Championship twice and faced ongoing concerns about his condition:

“People often talk about my knees, but honestly, my eye is the bigger issue. When I look down, I see both a flat surface and a slanted one. Running in such a distorted view is challenging—I can’t trust my footing, my opponent looks like two people, and I struggle with depth perception in certain environments. It’s been incredibly stressful, as I can’t fully focus on matches,” Naito explained.

Complicating matters, his doctor had warned against further surgeries on his right eye, suggesting instead a procedure on his left eye. Naito elaborated, “Apparently, there’s a method to align the vision of both eyes by adjusting the healthy eye to match the impaired one. This would help synchronize my overall vision. It sounded risky and made me very anxious, so I postponed it. But with the match against Hiromu now confirmed, I’ve decided to go through with it.” The surgery is scheduled for the 18th, and Naito will miss the next series (starting on the 18th in Tokorozawa) to prepare for the Tokyo Dome showdown.

“I’m scared, but if there’s a chance of recovery, I want to take it. That’s how much this singles match with Hiromu means to me. I want to stand before him as the strongest version of Tetsuya Naito possible and show the pride of a mentor.”

Fueled by his love for wrestling, unwavering determination to continue competing, and a special bond with Hiromu, Naito is heading toward the Tokyo Dome with everything on the line.

tl;dr - The eye problem which has been plaguing Naito for half a decade is still around (duh its permanent) and as he’s already had too many operations on his eye to fix it (which he told us this time last year when the 3rd procedure was done), they’ll be operating on the good eye to try and make it match the lazy one this time and hopefully be ready for WK on the 4th.

If this works it will also help prolong his career a bit (since imo in all likelihood he would have been retiring possibly after WK).