WWE Announces John Cena Injury, Status For Royal Rumble ‘Questionable’

WWE announced on social media this afternoon that John Cena suffered an injury on Raw last week during the Fatal Four-Way main event, leaving his status for the Royal Rumble Pay Per View in doubt.

John Cena is scheduled to be one of the 30 men competing in the WWE Royal Rumble Men’s match this Sunday in Chase Field, but a recent ankle injury has casted his status for the Big 5 PPV in doubt.

WWE’s digital media team tweeted out a video where Dasha Fuentes “broke” the news of Cena’s injury, informing viewers that he injured his ankle in a Fatal Four-Way match on Raw last week. Per Fuentes, Cena recently re-aggravated the injury, making his status uncertain.

The bout was won by Finn Balor, who pinned Cena with the “Coup de Grace” to earn an opportunity at Brock Lesnar’s Universal Championship on Sunday.

Fuentes noted that Cena’s status is “questionable”.

Based on footage WWE shared in the video embedded above, it appears Cena may have suffered the injury in the middle of the match, unsurprisingly wrestling through it so that he could raise Balor’s hand and give “the extraordinary man” a heartfelt speech. But now that he’s re-aggravated the injury, it’s become a situation to monitor closely.

Cena has become one of wrestling’s most beloved figures after once being a polarizing top star, as fans have been impressed with how much he tries to put young stars over. Not only has he verbally praised wrestlers like The Velveteen Dream. Becky Lynch, and Finn Balor, but he’s also given “hot tags” to stars like Becky and Seth before giving Balor the pinfall win in the main event of Raw last week. Apparently, it was Cena’s idea for Balor to pin him to win the match, too.

We can only hope that John Cena’s ankle injury isn’t serious, and it would be a shame if he is unable to compete in the Royal Rumble. He’s expected to be a big part of the match, as usual, so we’ll see if his “questionable” status improves as the week goes on.

Fuentes and the rest of the WWE digital team will likely provide us updates in the lead up to Sunday’s Pay Per View, and we hope that Cena has a quick and full recovery from this injury. Ankle issues can be quite tricky.

That said, because it is wrestling, we have to be prepared for this to be a “work” (it seems like it is, too), especially since Cena could be creating a clever storyline here for WrestleMania season (Drew McIntyre?). This is another aspect of the injury update for fans to monitor, and we’d rather see Cena dealing with a kayfabe injury than a real one.