As noted last night, Randy Orton was pulled from Sunday night’s WWE Backlash PPV match with Bray Wyatt. WWE shot an injury angle to take him out of the match, leading to Kane facing Wyatt. Kane defeated Wyatt after Orton ran out and hit the RKO on Wyatt.
Pwinsider.com reports that WWE officials were aware of Orton’s issues with being cleared for the last week. The site also adds that the injury is concussion related, due to the angle with Lesnar at SummerSlam. Orton had passed some of the Impact concussion testing, but he was not passing them consistently enough to be cleared by WWE doctors, so he was held off of the PPV.
Pro Wrestling Sheet also reports that the issue was a concussion from the SummerSlam match, and WWE didn’t pull the match because they had hoped that he would be cleared before the match.
Dave Meltzer noted on Observer Radio that he was actually shocked that Orton was allowed to do the RKO if he did have a concussion. He speculated that the issue may have been more to do with the staples Orton received from the Orton match.
