Last year, at the Survivor Series War Games Premium Live Event Randy Orton made his much-anticipated return. The Apex Predator was away for almost two years due to a spinal injury. Prior to his return, many believed that Orton’s career was over. In fact that is what the doctors told the Legend Killer.
Recently, during an interview with The New York Post, The Viper shared all the details about his mindset before his spinal fusion surgery and how he recovered post-surgery.
“I was with my wife. I was with a couple doctors. I was with a couple top-of-their-class neurosurgeons and they had looked at the MRI (exam),” the 43-year-old Orton told The Post in a phone interview. “And based on my symptoms and how bad my lower spine was, based on the MRIs they were like, ‘You know what, you’ve had a great career. You got to start thinking about your life past wrestling and being there for your kids. This surgery isn’t the type of surgery you come back from and remain an athlete from.’”
“I was in tears,” Orton said. “I think it’s OK for grown men to f–king cry and I was a little baby. I was so sad that it was being taken away from me… To see it taken away from him and to see what he went through, but to not to really understand the gravity of it,” Orton said. “And then to be faced with that same scenario, man it was tough.”
Randy Orton thanks Drew Gulak for giving him the confidence to get back to wrestle
“I did my first RKO in late August and if it wasn’t for Drew I wouldn’t have gotten that little bit of confidence back,” Orton said. “It was until like January where I really started to feel like ‘OK. I got my wheels back under me. I feel like I’m in control. This is what I’m good at dammit.’ It took a second.”
“To be given that second chance was all the more important to me and motivating for me to be able to do it as long as I could and not take second for granted.”
Randy Orton confirms that he is pain-free
The Legend Killer is happy to be back and this time around he is finally pain-free. So now while he wants to win his 15th WWE World Heavyweight title, he wants to make sure he continues to wrestle at this stage.
“In my 30s my back was killing me and I had to work around it,” Orton said. “Now I’m pain-free more so than I’ve even been. I’m not so worried about [championship] number 15. Now don’t get me wrong, I want number 15, but my number one priority is just being able to do this at this level for as long as I can and not pulling back on the reins.”
Randy Orton gets an opportunity to win that 15th title this year. He steps inside the Elimination Chamber this Saturday.
Can Randy Orton win the Elimination Chamber match?
