Following Tuesday’s WWE SmackDown! taping, the wrestling company wrote on its Twitter account that the brand’s biggest Superstar was injured in his main-event bout.
According to the post, Randy Orton, that Superstar, was injured during his Falls Count Anywhere match with Wade Barrett. WWE did not reveal any details on the injury, noting that further information would come soon on WWE.com (it later wrote on WWE.com that Orton will be replaced by Sheamus at the house shows this week).
It should be noted (spoiler warning) that WWE very much positioned the ending to the Orton-Barrett match as an “injury angle”–the bout ended when Barrett threw Orton down a flight of stairs. There is obviously a chance that WWE knew Orton required time off and scripted the angle as explanation for an absence–or that the final bump caused more damage than was expected–but the match’s ending reveals there is at least some (if not a complete) storyline element to the situation.
PWInsider, for what it is worth, is reporting that Orton suffered a legitimate back injury at the show.
