Finn Balor's Original Return Timeline Now "Crushed"

AS Finn Balor starts his rehabilitation back into the ring, the original four-month return now looks to be something in the likes of six months or possibly more. Balor was injured in the ring at SummerSlam and even though he won the Universal Championship, Monday Night Raw's world title equivalent, he had to relinquish it the next day. Meanwhile, Seth Rollins, the man who is blamed for Balor's injury is getting criticized by the wrestling community, including Bret "The Hitman" Hart.

Finn talked about the first steps to his road to recovery in a WWE-exclusive clip and how he's not sure how to cope with being out of the ring for that long.

"Today was probably one of the longest days of my entire life," the former champ said. "It turned out the surgery was a lot more complicated than was first anticipated."

"It's been a long day. I was in and out of it for the first 12 hours with the meds. At 9 a.m. they pulled me out of bed and brought me down to the rehabilitation clinic where they kinda pulled it around and done some mobilization work, which was agony." He continues with how the realization of a quick return is long gone. "Any hopes of being back in four months I think are crushed. It's going to be at least six months of rehabilitation."

Having joined WWE in their developmental NXT brand 2 years ago Finn, already a global seasoned veteran, has proved to be a future franchise player, but an injury like this has the potential to set his career back a notch. He mentions that his friends tell him the first month is the most difficult and that he actually might "enjoy the time off". Not likely for a man like Finn Balor.

"I'm pretty gutted about the amount of work I'm going to miss. It's going to be a long road back, maybe 180-190 days. Today is day one. I'm really hoping that it gets better because if every day is like today it's going to be pretty tough."

There was speculation he still had enough time to recoup to enter next year's Royal Rumble, but there's always the chance for a surprise WrestleMania return.