Kevin Owens Casts Doubt On Potential In-Ring Return

Kevin Owens is hopeful he’ll return to the ring.

On the April 4 edition of SmackDown, Kevin Owens announced that he was being forced to miss WrestleMania and his match with Randy Orton. Not only that, he needed to undergo neck surgery and could be out of the ring for well over a year.

In a subsequent interview, Kevin Owens said he suffered the injury during a regular singles match in January. That means he competed in several high-profile matches, including his violent Unsanctioned Match with Sami Zayn at Elimination Chamber, with the problem.

It was reported back in July that Kevin Owens had undergone successful surgery, and the next phase of his recovery was underway.

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Since the surgery, Owens has remained largely out of the spotlight. However, he recently appeared at NASCAR’s 2025 Coke Zero Sugar 400 in Daytona and gave an update on his recovery while taking questions.

The former World Champion began by giving details of exactly what the surgery was.

“Yeah, so it’s a neck surgery. I needed neck fusion. It was very stressful going into it, because we weren’t really sure how severe the fusion was going to be, how many levels, all this stuff. Thankfully, ended up only being one level, which is the best-case scenario for something like this.”

Owens went on to explain that while he hopes he can resume his in-ring career, his future is currently hanging in the balance.

“The surgery was successful. I had a great doctor. The thing is, now we have to see how the bones fuse, and there’s no guarantee that it’s going to work. You know, how my body heals. And we’ll see. Some guys had success, some guys didn’t.

Fingers crossed, I can come back to wrestling in the next year. Really don’t know, though, but yeah, my goal is to come back. So hopefully that’s what happens.”

During an interview back in June, Kevin Owens revealed that he turned down a partnership with Damian Priest as he battled Roman Reigns and The Bloodline. Owens said that he rejected the pitch because a partnership between the pair wouldn’t have made sense, rather than having anything against Priest as a performer.

H/t to WrestlingNews.Co