CM Punk, Cody Rhodes Injuries and Recovery Times Via Dr. Chao

Stars for both AEW and WWE announced serious injuries over the weekend.

Friday, AEW World Champion CM Punk told fans that he needed surgery and would be off television indefinitely.

Then on Sunday, WWE performer Cody Rhodes revealed that he tore his pectoral tendon while weight training.

Let us take them one by one:

Cody Rhodes

Cody was able to compete last night at Hell in a Cell but with one of the nastiest bruises you'll see on television:

That's not makeup. That's a live shot of a torn pec.  

OutKick contributor Dr. David Chao, who operated on WWE star Rey Mysterio, explained on SIC Score how Cody was able to compete days after his injury:

"Given the scripted circumstances, he was able to perform as expected as previous alluded to at sicscore.com. The wrestler had clear, telltale bruising consistent of a right pectoral tendon rupture with hematoma and ecchymosis of his right pec muscle including down the right side of his biceps where the pec tendon attaches."

Chao adds that other athletes have played through this same injury:

"In Super Bowl LVI, SS Eric Weddle for the Rams tore his pectoral tendon in the first quarter as we opined here, but was able to finish the game while piling up four tackles. The wily vet was able to do this by altering his tackling technique which resulted in the safety making a key stop where the Bengals key drive ultimately stalled ending in a Rams victory."

The bad news is that Cody cannot perform with a torn pec long-term. According to multiple reports, Cody will have surgery to repair his pectoral muscle on Thursday.

Chao says a four-month recovery typically follows this surgery but that Cody "could return to some limited wrestling in three months at the earliest."

That timeline puts Cody out of SummerSlam, WWE's second-biggest event of the year, on July 30. Massive blow.

CM Punk

There are fewer details regarding CM Punk's injury. So far, Punk has only said "things are broken" and that he needs surgery.

However, a report from Fightful says Punk told people on Wednesday that he had a sore foot following a tag match on Dynamite.

Punk appears to have injured his left foot during a botched springboard attempt here:

An injured foot is consistent with the noticeable left-side limp that he had on Friday when he made the announcement:

Punk could also be suffering from multiple injuries. On the same Wednesday that he complained about his foot, he seemed to have banged up his right knee while jumping into the crowd:

 

Keep in mind that AEW announced Punk would not relinquish the title. Instead, AEW will book an interim champion who will compete to unify the title upon Punk's return.

This suggests AEW does not plan on Punk missing multiple pay-per-view events, but enough time to crown an interim champion. 

The date to watch is Sunday, September 4. AEW holds its flagship All Out event on Sunday before each Labor Day. Punk, the biggest draw in AEW, is crucial to the success of All Out.

Based on the video, Dr. Chao tells OutKick that AEW should be able to script an All Out match around Punk in September, three months post-surgery.