Kyle O’Reilly Opens Up About Hiatus From AEW Due To Injury, Stepping Away After Big Wins Over Jon Moxley

Candid comments from O’Reilly.

The 2026 AEW Dynasty pay-per-view featured the return of Kyle O’Reilly. He teamed with Orange Cassidy and Roderick Strong to defeat The Dogs (Gabe Kidd, Clark Connors & David Finlay) to capture the World Trios Championship.

O’Reilly had been out since November due to a bulging disc in his neck and an arm fracture. Going into Dynasty, O’Reilly sat down with This is VANCOLOUR for an interview and talked about his recent time away due to the 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 dove into how he processed having to step away from the ring after scoring big wins over Jon Moxley in Blood & Guts and at Full Gear, respectively.

O’Reilly mentioned that the last two times he’s had to step away from the ring, those final bouts were with Moxley. He said he’s grateful to have worked with Moxley because the current Continental Champion brings something different out of him. O’Reilly feels that the AEW higher-ups, the fans, and fellow talent viewed him in a different light during that Moxley program.

“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…”

To read O’Reilly’s comments about his return, head over to this link.

If the quotes in this article are used, please credit This is VANCOLOUR with an H/T to Fightful for the transcriptions.