Chad Gable has revealed that his rotator cuff surgery in Birmingham, Alabama, last summer required an unplanned second procedure after the surgeon discovered his biceps tendon was far more damaged than imaging had shown.
Gable shared the details in episode two of his YouTube docuseries documenting his time away from WWE.
They went to work on me. From what I understand, the whole operation took less than an hour. Surgery went well. Fixed it up just like we were supposed to, but while Dr. Dugas was in there, he found the bicep tendon at the shoulder was pretty much completely shredded to a degree that he did not know, because the images do not always show everything. So when he went in there, the bicep tendon was actually a lot worse than he thought it was, so he repaired that as well, since he was in there anyway. So, a little bonus surgery for Gable here.
Dr. Jeffrey Dugas told Gable that being able to compete with his arm in that condition was a sign of an elite athlete, while urging patience in the recovery process.
You’re going to get it all back. It’s just a matter of being patient with it and just trusting the process and not trying to rush it. The people who end up failing are the ones that try to rush it. So, yeah, everything could not have gone better.
Gable also shared that Triple H called him before the surgery and helped frame the recovery in a way that kept him focused. Levesque told Gable that the moment surgery happened, he was starting day one of a new job where getting healthy was the entire mission — and to follow every doctor’s instruction without trying to cut corners.
Gable returned to WWE programming in early 2026 and has since built significant momentum, most recently in a storyline in which he is making amends for his El Grande Americano character’s disrespect toward lucha libre following his mask-vs.-mask loss to Ludwig Kaiser at AAA Noche de Los Grandes.