King Xavier Woods revealed that he is currently injured, suffering from a torn plantaris injury that will keep him out of the Royal Rumble.
On the January 7th episode of SmackDown, Xavier Woods teamed with Kofi Kingston to take on the Usos in a street fight. During the match, Woods jumped into the ring to deliver a DDT, but in a stroke of bad luck, he suffered an injury in the process.
King Woods appeared on G4’s Attack of the Show on January 13 and revealed that he’d suffered a torn plantaris, which he described as the muscle underneath his calf. He also spoke about the moment the injury happened as he attempted to deliver a DDT to Jey Uso, saying that nothing extraordinary happened to cause him harm; he simply jumped.
“Yeah, so I was jumping in the ring to do a DDT. I spring off the bottom rope and grab the guy and then run his head into the ground hopefully shattering all the bones in his body so I can pin him and win the match, and make more money. So I did that part still but in the process — No, just jumping off the rope, so nothing like — not a shark attack, not a steel chair hit, not a machine gun, not a machete. I just jumped.”
When asked if he was able to finish the match despite his torn plantaris, Xavier Woods confirmed that he still had part of the match to go and was able to persevere and make some modifications instead of exiting the match early. He also provided an estimated timeframe for his return.
“I still had some stuff to do. But in those situations, you’ve got to figure out like, ‘Am I hurt to the point where I can no longer like go forward? Am I hurt to the point where I could mess up and possibly negatively affect someone else’s health?’ You gotta keep everybody safe in there, and I was okay. You know, this sucks. I can’t do this or that but I can do this for this. We finished everything and it’s all cool.
So, like, four to six weeks, and I’ll be good.”
This 4-6 week time frame means that King Woods is most likely set to miss this year’s Royal Rumble on January 29. Fellow SmackDown star Sasha Banks is also dealing with a leg injury and is estimated to be out of action for two months, meaning she will also miss the Premium Live Event.
For a complete list of Royal Rumble participants, click here.
h/t Fightful