During Friday night's SmackDown, a brawl between Randy Orton and Kevin Owens culminated with the Prizefighter hitting The Viper with a Piledriver.
WWE has protected the move by rarely using it, a sharp contrast to AEW where wrestlers take the move on the steel steps and get back up again to continue fighting!
After receiving the Piledriver, Orton was stretchered out of the building and taken away in an ambulance. Now, WWE is reporting that, "[Orton] has been diagnosed with a cervical cord neurapraxia. There is no timetable for his return."
We'd imagine the plan from here is for Rhodes to resume his feud with KO heading into Survivor Series: WarGames.
Fans remain convinced that Orton will eventually turn on the American Nightmare and, seeing as it is kind of his fault that this incident happened. we'd imagine WWE will revisit the Piledriver a great deal moving forward.
Whether this is leading to another title reign for Orton remains to be seen.
"To answer your question honestly, I think do this for as long as I can and make sure, we brought up my wife Kim on a couple of occasions, she told me, 'When it’s time to hang them up, I’ll let you know,'" Orton previously said of his in-ring future. "If this is when I need to hang them up, I don’t want to go here. I don’t want to retire and have a last match and then leave the company and have another last match and another one and another one."
He added, "Like John [Cena]. When he says, ‘This is my last Royal Rumble. This is my last Elimination Chamber. This is my last WrestleMania.’ He means it. If anyone has ever meant that, it’s him. I want to follow suit. I want, when it’s all said and done and it’s over, I want it to be over. I want to take it to that point and then tear it down and ride off into the sunset."
Check out some highlights from SmackDown, along with WWE's update, below.