Kurt Angle Reveals Randy Orton’s Level Of Concern Over Back Injury
Ahead of Randy Orton’s WWE comeback, Kurt Angle shared what he was told about the Apex Predator’s back injury.
The return of Randy Orton is one of the big moments coming up at WWE Survivor Series in Chicago. It was rumored for several weeks before the show and on the final Raw prior to Survivor Series, Cody Rhodes confirmed that The Viper would be on his team in the Men’s WarGames match.
That Men’s WarGames match at Survivor Series will see Cody Rhodes team up with WWE World Champion Seth “Freakin” Rollins, Jey Uso, Sami Zayn and Randy Orton. They will face The Judgment Day’s Damian Priest, Finn Balor, Dominik Mysterio, JD McDonagh and their ally for one night, Drew McIntyre.
For Orton, it will be his first match since May 2022 when he and his partner Matt Riddle lost to The Usos in a match to unify the WWE Tag Team Titles. Orton has missed 18 months of in-ring action after having major back surgery, which led to a lot of rehab before being cleared to wrestle again.
Did Randy Orton Think He Would Never Wrestle Again?
Randy Orton is 43 years old and has had his share of injuries in his 21-year WWE career, but the former 14-time World Champion has never missed over a year of action prior to this back injury.
During The Kurt Angle Show podcast, WWE Hall of Famer Kurt Angle shared what Randy Orton told him privately regarding the serious back injury that Orton has been dealing with. Angle is a good friend of Orton while their wives are best friends.
“It’s about time. I’m just glad he did [return] because I was communicating with him for quite some time when he was out with the injury because Kim [Orton] and Giovanna [Angle] are best friends.”
“He was telling me, ‘Hey, man, it’s not looking good. I don’t know how my back is going to heal if my back’s going to heal.’ So he was a little worried about it for a while and eventually it started to heal up and now I think he’s okay, but it was pretty serious for some time.”
“They didn’t know [if Orton would return]. Randy, he’s young, too. I mean he’s in his 40s, but he’s still pretty young. [Compared to] me and other guys that are wrestling like Sting in his 60s and Chris Jericho in his 50s. So yeah, he’s still young. He still has a good six or seven years if he stays healthy.”
WWE Survivor Series airs on Saturday, November 25th, at 8 p.m. ET/5 p.m. PT, streaming live exclusively on Peacock in the United States and on WWE Network everywhere else.