John Cena Undergoes Successful Neck Surgery, Early Timetable For His Return

Regardless what you think of the guy, you have to be happy for John Cena today. The former WWE Champion and top draw is now expected to miss up to two to four months instead of 12-14 months after successful surgery in Pittsburgh today.

On Monday, it was announced that Cena would be out indefinitely as he was suffering neck pain due to his match against Batista at SummerSlam (not sure if that's true or not). There was major concern Cena would need the dreaded fusion surgery that Edge, Steve Austin, and Chris Benoit had, but WWE Medical Program head Dr. Joseph Maroon simply removed a fragment from Cena's spinal cord that was blocking a nerve in a 90-minute operation.

In fact, Cena was walking around and was backstage at Tuesday night's Smackdown tapings in Pittsburgh just hours post-surgery, according to WWE.com.

You can see pictures of the surgery and additional details here. Congratulations to Cena and his family. Again, no matter what you think of him, he's an important figure to the business now and for the next few years.

Josh Nason started Ropes, Ring and Cage in 2007 and is the main contributor of content for the site. He can be reached at [e-mail].