SmackDown’s Zack Ryder to undergo knee surgery

Zack Ryder won number one contendership for his tag team, the Hype Bros, this past Tuesday on SmackDown Live. Sadly for Ryder, he won’t be able to do anything with that, as the knee injury he was confirmed to have two days ago requires surgery. Ryder will undergo surgery on Thursday, according to the man himself, and his return date is currently unknown.

This is unfortunate for Ryder, who saw a career resurgence in 2016. Thanks to his work with Mojo Rawley at NXT, Ryder ended up at WrestleMania and won the Intercontinental Championship in a ladder match. He and Mojo were just starting to get momentum on SmackDown after this summer’s brand split, but that will have to wait until he’s back.

What SmackDown has planned next is something we might just have to wait to see. Ryder had won a Battle Royal to earn that number one contender spot for his team, but chances are good that the second-to-last team that was active, The Ascension, aren’t going to be the ones to take on the SmackDown Tag Team Champions, the Wyatt Family: both groups are heels, so there will likely have to be a total reversal of course here.

There are now also questions of what this means for Rawley. Maybe he’ll get a chance to shine in the singles division on SmackDown now, as he’s leaps and bounds ahead of where he was last time he was a singles competitor back on NXT before his own time away from the ring due to surgery.