Drew McIntyre made a surprise return to WWE at the Royal Rumble after being sidelined by a legitimate neck injury.

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The Scottish star has been out of action since WWE Day 1 and wasn't slated to return until March, but he somehow managed to recover from his issues in time to almost win the men's Royal Rumble match.

PWInsider has since reported that the WWE Superstar went to great lengths to keep his ring return two months ahead of schedule a surprise.

The wrestling website said: "Drew McIntyre arrived extremely late into the Royal Rumble PPV to hide his return.

"We are told that since the stadium was so massive that there were some in the company who had no idea he was even there until he arrived in the Gorilla position for the Men's Rumble match."

McIntyre made it all the way to the final two of the Rumble match succumbing to his former nemesis The Beast Incarnate Brock Lesnar, who had lost the WWE title to Bobby Lashley earlier on in the night.

When Was Drew McIntyre Injured And When Was He Supposed To Return?

McIntyre had been having frequent issues with Happy Corbin and Madcap Moss and took on Moss in a single's match at WWE's Day 1 PPV.

McIntyre defeated Moss with a Claymore, but a while after the match Moss and Corbin ambushed him, wrapped a chair around his neck and hit it with part of a lighting rig. This was WWE writing McIntyre off of television for a while.

It turned out that he had been working with legitimate neck issues for the last few weeks prior to that match and needed time away from the ring for medical testing to determine the severity of the problem.

Dave Meltzer of the Wrestling Observer Newsletter then added that McIntyre wasn't expected to return for the Royal Rumble, with the hope being that he'd be back for WrestleMania on April 2 and 3.