Randy Orton injury update

Randy Orton reportedly will miss a significant amount of time due to a back injury that has kept him out of action for nearly a month.

Fightful Select is reporting that WWE fears Orton’s back injury is worse than originally calculated and that he could miss the remainder of 2022.

For most of 2021 and all of 2022, Orton has spent his time working with Riddle as part of the RK-Bro tag team. The duo are two time WWE Raw Tag Team Champions. Most recently, Orton and Riddle lost a tag team title unification match to The Usos. Roman Reigns interfered in the match to cost RK-Bro the win. After the match, Reigns and The Usos decimated both Orton and Riddle. Orton has not been seen on WWE television since.

With Randy Orton out, Riddle has teamed with Shinsuke Nakamura for a few matches against The Usos. On Smackdown Friday night, Riddle will challenge Roman Reigns for the WWE Undisputed Universal Championship. This is Riddle’s first shot at the world title in WWE and if he loses, he will not be able to challenge for that championship again as long as Reigns is champion.

Reigns has been undisputed world champion since WrestleMania 38. He defeated Brock Lesnar to win the WWE Championship, adding it to the Universal Championship that he has held for over 600 days.

Friday night on Smackdown will be Reigns’ first title defense since winning at WrestleMania.

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