Doctors Told THIS Top WWE Star To Retire
This major WWE player was urged to retire by doctors.
Having returned to in-ring action in November after 18 months on the sidelines due to back issues, WWE's Randy Orton has revealed how medical experts advised him to retire rather than step back between the ropes.
Speaking to the legendary Bill Apter for Sportskeeda's WrestleBinge, Orton explained that "top neurologists" had urged him to hang up his boots due to those back problems.
As the Viper noted:
"I had top neurologists telling me that, 'You know what, you had a great career, you have a life after wrestling, and you wanna be comfortable. You don't wanna be in pain the rest of your life. We're gonna fix your back, but you're gonna have to stop wrestling.' The first six months that I was out, I had that in the back of my head, and it was tough. It was mentally very challenging."
On finding alternative doctors who'd be able to help him continue his wrestling career, Randal Keith added:
"[I] didn't really know what the future held for me, but I was able to find a couple of 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."
As alluded to, Randy Orton was written off WWE TV in May 2022 due to a Bloodline beatdown. In reality, the 14-time World Champion had significant back issues that needed dealing with; back issues that clearly nearly cost the future WWE Hall of Famer his career.
Randy's return was announced on the go-home edition of Raw prior to last year's Survivor Series, with the 44-year-old teaming with Cody Rhodes, Seth Rollins, Sami Zayn, and Jey Uso to take on Drew McIntyre and the Judgment Day at that Premium Live Event. While Orton's team picked up the win, the biggest Survivor Series story of course was the shocking WWE return of a certain CM Punk.
Since then, Orton has been a featured player on the SmackDown brand, immediately setting his sights on the Bloodline, unsuccessfully challenging for the Undisputed WWE Universal Championship at that point held by Roman Reigns, forming a tag team with Kevin Owens, coming up short in a triple-threat match for Logan Paul's United States Title at WrestleMania XL that also featured KO, and now with the revamped Bloodline in his crosshairs as Randy gets set to take on Tama Tonga in a King of the Ring semi-final on this week's SmackDown.