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WWE.com is reporting that WWE Champion John Cena suffered an injury to his right Achilles tendon at the hands of Ryback during their tour of Europe that ended yesterday.
However, the manner in which the story is worded would leave one to believe that this was a work to make Cena the underdog in his match against Ryback at Extreme Rules in three weeks time:
"The injury raises questions about the scheduled match between Cena and Ryback at Extreme Rules on May 19. What lies ahead for the Cenation leader? Does this put Ryback one step closer to capturing the WWE Title?
There are no details yet about Cena's expected recovery time.
For more, stay with WWE.com and tune in to Monday’s Raw at 8/7 CT on USA Network."
If Cena is genuinely injured, then it must not be too serious for WWE to still be pushing the Cena vs. Ryback angle hard.
The main event of Monday Night Raw tomorrow was scheduled to be John Cena & Ryback vs. The Shield. Presumably that match is now off, but WWE hasn't confirmed that to be true.
According to f4wonline.com, Cena headlined the last Raw branded house show of the tour in Lodz, Poland, last night in a trios match with Kane and Daniel Bryan against Ryback, Dolph Ziggler and Big E Langston. They received a brief report of the event, which suggested that nothing unusual happened in the match, which would be further evidence that the injury is likely a work or something Cena would not need much time to recover from.
However, Jason Powell of prowrestling.net suggested that towards the end of the tour Cena may have been booked in six man tag matches instead of tables matches with Ryback, so that his partners could carry the load and he could finish headlining the tour whilst being banged up:
"Cena and Ryback were working tables matches against one another throughout most of the tour. However, the final Euro tour main events were changed to six-man tag matches that Cena was able to work, though one of our correspondents noted that Cena did not get involved in the St. Petersburg, Russia six-man tag until the very end of the match."
So the injury may be more legitimate than I initially thought.
We'll have more on this breaking news story as it comes in, Cagesiders.