Kurt Angle: Randy Orton Recovered from Back Surgery, Expects WWE Return 'Damn Soon' | News, Scores, Highlights, Stats, and Rumors

WWE Hall of Famer Kurt Angle believes Randy Orton will be back in action in the near future after undergoing back surgery.

Speaking on The Kurt Angle Show (h/t Subhojeet Mukherjee of Ringside News), Angle gave a positive update on The Viper, saying: "Doing good man. He recovered from his back surgery. He's, I think he's gonna come back pretty damn soon. He's doing much better, yes."

Kim Orton and Giovanna Angle, who are the wives of Randy and Kurt, respectively, are close friends who previously did a podcast together, which suggests Kurt could have some inside information regarding Randy's condition.

The 43-year-old Orton has been out of action for over a year, as he has not appeared on WWE programming since the May 20 episode of SmackDown.

On that show, Orton and Matt Riddle lost to The Usos in a winner-take-all match for the Raw and SmackDown Tag Team Championships.

After the match, The Usos attacked Orton and put him through the announce table, thus writing him off television.

Fightful Select (h/t H Jenkins of Ringside News) reported in November that Orton underwent fusion surgery on his lower back that was expected to keep him out for "an extended period of time," although no specific timeline was provided.

There was speculation that Orton was perhaps getting close to a return around WrestleMania time in April, but Dave Meltzer of the Wrestling Observer Newsletter (h/t WrestlingInc's Marco Rovere) reported that he was "nowhere close" to coming back.

Orton is one of the most decorated Superstars in WWE history, having held a world title on 14 occasions, tying him with Triple H for the most ever besides the 16 reigns by John Cena and Ric Flair.

Prior to getting injured, he was unquestionably one of the most popular babyfaces in WWE, as he and Riddle got their RK-Bro tag team hugely over with the WWE Universe.

Orton has also long been one of the best villains in wrestling, so WWE will have no shortage of options regarding how to deploy him when he is healthy enough to return.

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