20 Injured WWE Stars (And When They're Set To Return)
Assessing the in-ring future of WWE's tortured talent - featuring CM Punk, Asuka, and others.
Professional wrestling, generationally, is an increasingly dangerous profession.
It's wrestling. This is a world where world-class athletes are being repeatedly dropped on their noggin and having their limbs contorted in such maniacal angles that Zack Sabre Jr. looks like a pasta chef. Even by WWE's lighthearted sports entertainment standards where full-force Tomohiro Ishii-esque headbutts to the cranium and spiking Piledrivers are outlawed, the squared circle is a dangerous world; Money in the Bank 2024 was proof of that.
Chelsea Green's nauseating tumble from atop a ladder was the sort of spot WWE's female talent pool had been prohibited from doing for decades. The closest you'd get to anyone replicating Green's crashing and burning would be Candice Michelle faceplanting the mat in 2007, and even then, that was a mistake that could have happened to anyone, male, female, or otherwise.
Standing alongside Chelsea as some of Money in the Bank '24's would-be wounded warriors were Carmelo Hayes, who took a God-awful Sunset Flip Powerbomb onto a ladder that didn't give way in the slightest, Chad Gable, who hung upside down from a ladder by his leg, and Tiffany Stratton, who narrowly avoided a concussion on several occasions.
They all walked out injury-free, miraculously. The same cannot be said about...
20. CM Punk
CM Punk, almost as if to say he's in on the whole 'Fragile Phil' mockery, tore his right triceps while competing in his first WWE match in a decade. He's been shelved ever since, with the injury usually accompanying a six-month recovery spell, but the fact he's gotten physical on more than a handful of occasions, 'The Second City Saint' should be back in action momentarily.
Rushing back shouldn't be on the table, though, given this was his third major injury in as many years. The projected SummerSlam showdown vs. Drew McIntyre can wait for another Premium Live Event cycle if it means CM Punk will be at 110%.
Returning: Imminently.