Sheamus, who has not appeared for WWE since losing the United States Championship to Rusev in a live post-Raw bout on the WWE Network on Nov. 4, is scheduled to return either at tomorrow night’s SmackDown taping in Austin, Texas, or this Sunday at the Royal Rumble.
“The Celtic Warrior” is currently scheduled for the Royal Rumble Match, according to PWInsider.com, but may appear at tomorrow night’s taping.
The day after Sheamus lost the belt, WWE announced that he would be sidelined after suffering left cervical neurapraxia (stinger in arm), bone spurring, narrowing of the spinal canal (spinal stenosis) and narrowing of the nerve canals (neuroforaminal) along with nerve compression in his neck. Because of these injuries, Sheamus was pulled from Team Cena in the Traditional Elimination Tag Team match on Nov. 23 at “Survivor Series.” He was replaced by Erick Rowan.
The angle on Raw with Mark Henry putting Sheamus through the announce table was used as a means to write him off television. Although many perceived this injury to be part of a storyline, he was in fact hurt.
On Nov. 20, Sheamus indicated that he had undergone some sort of surgery and Tweeted out a photo of himself lying in a hospital bed getting prepped for an undisclosed operation.
