Bianca Belair says she has carpal tunnel syndrome in both hands, sixteen months after the injury that took her out of the ring.
She shared it on her Instagram stories, alongside a photograph of her finger in a brace.
“No one ever talks about this stuff. Currently carpal tunnel in both hands, fingers completely numb, no feeling in surgery finger whatsoever, no grip strength, and now also Mom thumb. Wtf lol.”
Belair has not wrestled since WrestleMania 41 in April 2025, when she was in a triple threat with Rhea Ripley and IYO SKY for the Women’s World Championship. She has since explained that the damage was to the joint rather than the finger itself.
“I broke my knuckle. Not my finger, I broke my knuckle. I broke the joint,” she said last year. “It’s something that I thought was gonna be a very straightforward, you know, eight to 12 weeks.”
“We were going to the top rope, because that’s what we do. And we came off the top rope, and Rhea landed straight on my hand, and it just crushed everything in my finger.”
The spot was a triple German suplex from the turnbuckle. She has said the joint broke in three places, healed, and would not bend, which is what made it unsafe for her to work. She had surgery in February 2026 and began rehabilitation the following day.
She has been on WWE television a handful of times in that period without wrestling, including a promo in her hometown of Knoxville, as special guest referee for Jade Cargill against Naomi at Evolution, and at WrestleMania 42 in April, brought out by John Cena, where she announced her pregnancy in front of a sold-out Allegiant Stadium.
She has said Paul Levesque suggested making the announcement there, which gave her a place on the show without needing to compete. The pregnancy was not the reason she stopped wrestling. Belair and her husband Montez Ford announced the birth of their son on August 4.
Carpal tunnel syndrome is pressure on the median nerve where it passes through the wrist, which produces numbness, tingling and weakness in the hand and fingers. Belair has not said what treatment she is having or whether it changes her timeline.
WWE has not commented on her status and no return date has been announced. Bodyslam+ reported earlier this year that she was on an internal list carrying no designated return date, and that the rehabilitation had been difficult.
The absence has also cost her a match. Reporting in the Wrestling Observer Newsletter earlier this year indicated WWE had originally planned for Cargill to defend the Women’s Championship against Belair at WrestleMania 42, which would have meant her returning in time to win either the Royal Rumble or the Elimination Chamber match. Neither happened, and Ripley faced Cargill in Las Vegas instead.
Belair spent 10 years with WWE, signing in 2016 and initially billed as the EST of NXT. She is a multiple-time world champion and tag team champion, won the 2021 Royal Rumble and the 2025 Elimination Chamber, and main evented night one of WrestleMania 37 against Sasha Banks, the first WrestleMania main event contested between two Black women.
Before WrestleMania 41, she had held a top position in the division for several years with no extended time off. Her absence now runs to almost seventeen months.
Bianca Belair reveals she’s battling Carpal Tunnel Syndrome
"No one ever talks about this stuff… currently carpal tunnel in both hands… fingers completely numb, no feeling in surgery finger whatsoever, no grip strength, and now also Mom thumb…wtf lol"
(IG) pic.twitter.com/CMaAASCNb8
— J O H N (@RomanEra0) August 25, 2026
