WWE's Kevin Owens Lays Out Recovery Timeline, Process Of Getting Cleared To Return

WWE's Kevin Owens has spoken about how quickly things changed in his recovery from his neck injury and how he rushed the process to get back in the ring.

Owens recently spoke to Canadian outlet "Faces" magazine, ahead of "WWE SmackDown's" show in Ontario, Canada, where he laid out his recovery timeline and how he was keen to get back in the ring. "The Prizefighter" said that he was not too pleased staying on the sidelines and said that his recovery picked up pace between May and July before his eventual return at SummerSlam in August. 

"Then in May when I did the announcement [about WWE coming to Canada], I just had a scan in April where they told me it's not close. So, I still had no hope. But somewhere between April and July, things in my neck and the healing process picked up, thankfully, and now here we are. But yeah, when I made that announcement, I really had no idea. I actually thought there's almost zero chance I would be on these shows [in Canada]," said Owens. "Everything was so quick. That's the craziest part. By the time they told me I could get back in the ring, that was mid-July. I cut my vacation short to get back in the ring as soon as I could. There's a process to get medically cleared, and the longer you've been out, the longer that process is, depending on the injury, the surgery and all of that stuff."

Owens acknowledged that he was frustrating everyone around him and was eager to get cleared, so much so that he completed all the tests required by WWE to get cleared in one go. He said that the process usually takes around a month to complete, but he did them in nine days to be given the go-ahead by WWE's medical staff. He revealed that the timeline between him getting cleared and wrestling at SummerSlam, where he won the match to become the #1 contender for the world title, was just two weeks.