Jacob Fatu was pulled from in-ring action on yesterday’s WWE Smackdown where he was scheduled to wrestle Drew McIntyre with the winner become the next contender for the WWE Undisputed title held by Cody Rhodes.

It was an expected development after an earlier report emerged that suggested that Fatu was dealing with a “non-wrestling” related issue that was shockingly going to sideline him for the rest of 2025 and into 2026. Now, we have an update on the situation and it may not be as bad as initially thought.

PWInsiderelite.com reported this morning that the word going around backstage amongst other wrestlers is that Fatu is recovering from a dental procedure and was not medically cleared by WWE’s medical personnel to wrestle. Furthermore, internally he is expected back “very soon” which would be a direct contradiction to the earlier report that he would be gone for months.

The pwinsider report added that Fatu is “very much liked” within WWE and there are officials who feel he is overdue for a significant push.