Injury Update On Viking Raiders' Erik As WWE Prepares Ivar For Singles Push

On Monday's episode of "WWE Raw," WWE aired a video package for Ivar of the Viking Raiders that clearly pointed to an upcoming singles run, the product of his partner, Erik, being out with an injury. Now, Fightful Select has issued an unfortunate update on Erik's condition, and it seems he's not expected to be returning to the ring anytime soon.

Erik's injury was initially announced by WWE back in September, though it remains unclear what the injury actually is. Earlier this month, Dave Meltzer of the Wrestling Observer reported that WWE had decided to push Ivar as a singles star, as Erik had gotten surgery and was expected to be gone for at least six months. Ivar's subsequent singles matches against the New Day's Kofi Kingston and Xavier Woods have reportedly garnered him some praise backstage, particularly since Ivar isn't normally a singles competitor. It was this praise that seemingly led to Ivar getting pushed on his own (alongside Valhalla) as teased on "Raw" — in WWE, injury to one member of a tag team generally leads to both being taken off TV, rather than the healthy team member being repackaged.

Erik and Ivar have been with WWE since 2018, when they were initially signed to "WWE NXT" as the War Raiders, Hanson and Rowe. Once they were drafted to the main roster, they were briefly known as The Viking Experience, a name that was greeted with widespread mockery and quickly changed to The Viking Raiders, though their new individual names stuck. So far in their WWE career, they have held both the "NXT" Tag Team Championship and the "Raw" Tag Team Championship, currently held by Chase U and The Judgment Day, respectively.