During his time out of the ring due to a back injury, Randy Orton was confronted with a proposition by a doctor: “We’re gonna fix your back, but you’re gonna have to stop wrestling.”
Medical professionals told Orton that his time as a wrestler should come to an end in 2022, preventing him from taking any further damage. But “The Viper” wasn’t ready to walk away from wrestling.
In an interview with Bill Apter of Sportskeeda WrestleBinge, Orton discussed how he grappled with his options before undergoing surgery and making his return late last year.
“I had top neurologists telling me that ‘You had a great career, you have a life after wrestling, and you want to be comfortable,'” he remembers hearing. “‘You don’t want to be in pain [for] the rest of your life. We’re gonna fix your back, but you’re gonna have to stop wrestling.’ The six months that I was out, I had that in the back of my head, and it was tough. It was mentally very challenging. [I] didn’t really know what the future held for me. But I was able to find a couple doctors that had done the exact surgery that I needed on some MMA guys that went back to the octagon, competed and were successful and had longer careers. So I knew that these were the doctors that I needed to have put me under and go under the knife with.”
Orton ended a more than year-long absence from in-ring action in November last year, appearing as a surprise member of a War Games team at WWE Survivor Series. He has been a part of WWE’s top events since then, including a Wrestlemania Triple Threat against Logan Paul and Kevin Owens, and a world title match at the Royal Rumble.
