Kyle O’Reilly on His Recent Neck Injury Hiatus from AEW Prior to His Return at Dynasty 2026 & Future of His Wrestling Career

As noted before, this past Sunday’s AEW Dynasty 2026 event in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada featured Kyle O’Reilly making his surprise return from injury. O’Reilly also won the AEW World Trios Championship with The Conglomeration’s Orange Cassidy and Roderick Strong at the event.

VANCOLOUR held a recent interview with O’Reilly. One of the topics discussed included O’Reilly’s thoughts about his recent time away from AEW and wrestling due to a neck injury.

“My whole career, it’s kind of been neck issues I’ve been dealing with. So I had another neck injury in November, during this program that I had with Jon Moxley so I had a Blood & Guts match and a big singles match with Jon and I was dealing with some neck stuff. So I was dealing with that, so I needed a little bit of time off. But in the back of my mind, I was like, I really wanna be ready in time for the Vancouver pay-per-view…”

O’Reilly also gave his thoughts about the last two times he has had to step away from the ring, those final matches were with Jon Moxley and he feels that the AEW office, fans, and fellow talent viewed him in a different light during his feud with Moxley this past November.

“To follow up the two biggest wins of my career with an injury and being out for several months, yeah, there’s never good timing for an injury but, especially then, that’s very unfortunate. Injuries come. That’s the name of the game… It’s funny that it’s with Jon Moxley because that was my last match before getting injured the first time was against Jon Moxley, and then for me to come full circle, and then to finally beat him again, you know, two years later or whatever and then to get hurt. It’s really kind of cool that Moxley’s really brought out something in me and really given me a lot, and I’m forever grateful for the chance to work with him and really tap into a different side of me that Jon was able to pull out and so now, I think the fans and the office and the talent look at me in a different light now because of that program with Jon and so, it was a big opportunity as a big singles wrestler to get two big wins over a top guy like that. It’s huge. Injury, it sucks but…”

O’Reilly also gave his thoughts about the future of his wrestling career and if he is interested in wrestling into his 50s.

“It’s hard to say. I think the most important things is that wrestlers, we look at ourselves as professional athletes now. It wasn’t always like that in a bygone era, and so, we put a lot more into our recovery, into our rehab. I work with a strength and conditioning coach now who does all my programming and all my rehab… I don’t have to think about that now so, I can just think about my rehab and things like that. So I think that does add years to your career. It is a grind, the travel’s hard. Being away from your family is hard. I’m a Type 1 diabetic as well so that puts a lot of stress on my body as well. Lifelong diabetic on top of being a wrestler. That said, I would love to wrestle into my 50s. I’ll be 40 next year. I’ve been in the business since 2005, so 21 years this year which blows my mind to even say. But yeah, it’s an inspiration seeing guys like Edge — or (Adam) Copeland and Christian (Cage) and (Chris) Jericho still going and still putting out amazing matches. That’s awesome to see and so yeah, and the thing about wrestling, you’re involved. Doesn’t mean that I would always have to remain a wrestler. There’s producing jobs, there’s coaching jobs, I could open a school. I think in some way, I’ll always be involved in the business, whether it’s as a wrestler or in another capacity.”

Transcript h/t: Fightful.com 1 & 2