Rey Mysterio missed this week’s Smackdown tapings due to a lingering knee injury. His absence had been planned before Extreme Rules and he is scheduled to continue his feud with Chris Jericho upon his return.
Batista, meanwhile, underwent surgery to reattach his torn bicep yesterday. He is scheduled to miss at least four months of action, although WWE is considering delaying his return until the Royal Rumble. The following is a list of Batista’s major injuries during his WWE career:
— Early 2003: Batista tore his right triceps shortly after debuting on WWE TV. Re-injured during recovery and returned in October 2003.
— January 2006: Batista tore his right triceps again during a match against Mark Henry. Returned seven months later in January.
— August 2008: Batista suffered a torn hamstring, but continued to wrestle until the end of the year before electing to have surgery on the hamstring. Returned in April 2009, two months earlier than planned. He also started working house shows earlier than planned due to the storyline injury of Triple H.
— June 2009: Batista injured biceps muscle through wear and tear. Elected to have surgery to repair torn muscle. His left arm had been hurting for a while, most noticeably at the controversial tapings in Los Angeles recently as he had to ice his bicep backstage after doing anything physical on-camera. It was aggravated further during his cage match with Cody Rhodes the following week, after which he went for an MRI. WWE was not aware of the results until very close to Extreme Rules, perhaps even on the day of the show. The call was made to do the title switch as they felt they could not have Batista fail in yet another title challenge. It is worth noting that biceps are small muscles used regularly and intensely by bodybuilders and are commonly torn without steroid use, unlike triceps, lats or abs.
WWE contemplated doing a four-man tournament for the vacant title on Raw this week but instead they decided to go with a four-way match between Triple H, Randy Orton, John Cena and Big Show.
Credit: PWTorch.com
