Ryback Will Miss WWE Battleground Due To Injury

By John Canton / July 16, 2015

WWE Intercontinental Champion Ryback will miss Sunday's Battleground pay-per-view event due to a staph infection in his right knee that was discovered on Tuesday morning. As a result of his injury, his triple threat match for the IC Title against Big Show and The Miz has been removed from the card, according to WWE.com. Ryback sent out several tweets to explain what happened:

After Raw Monday I woke up Tuesday morning before some media appearances with a severe staph infection in my right knee. I was brought to a hospital and put on strong antibiotics and had 90 cc of fluid drained out of knee in a 24 hour period. We caught it in time thanks to the great WWE medical team and I will make a full recovery. Will be kept in the hospital for several days and I will not be able to defend my Intercontinental Championship this Sunday. I am sorry to all my fans and the WWE. I will be back shortly, but I have to get this corrected.

The good news is the staph infection was detected early because if not they can be very dangerous. As he mentioned, he has to get it corrected and it's going to take some time for him to return to the ring. There's no specific timeline on when he can wrestle again and WWE hasn't made an announcement about the future of the IC Title. If he's out for a month or two then he'll probably keep the title, but if it's more than that then the curse of the IC Title strikes again.

Since the IC Title match is off, WWE will likely put on a replacement bout at Battleground. A singles match with Big Show and Miz is possible, although with both guys as heels it may not be a great idea. There are also talented performers like Cesaro, Rusev, Dean Ambrose, Stardust and Neville that don't have a match on Sunday, so perhaps WWE can do something with them.