As revealed on Raw last night, John Cena is nursing a serious neck injury that is set to keep him out of action for some time.

Cena will be examined later today in Pittsburgh by neurosurgeon Dr. Joseph Maroon at the University of Pittsburgh.

Following tonight’s Smackdown TV tapings, Cena is then is scheduled to fly to San Antonio, TX tomorrow to meet with Dr. Lloyd Youngblood.

Youngblood has performed neck surgery on a number of current and former WWE stars including Steve Austin, Edge, Lita and Gregory Helms.

While the injury was described as a herniated disc during Raw, the full extent of the injury will remain unknown until Youngblood has examined Cena, although it was clear from speaking briefly to a couple of people last night that some in WWE were preparing for Cena to be out of action until at least early 2009.

A worst case scenario could see Cena ruled out for at least a year.

The Wrestling Observer posted late on Monday that Cena, who had undergone an MRI at the weekend prior to Saturday night’s house show in New York, had told people that his neck is “fucked up badly.”

In a short piece put on WWE.com last night, Cena said: ” “It needs to be dealt with because I lost most of the feeling in my right arm and am having pain in my shoulder….I’m losing 20 percent of my strength per day. If I don’t do anything about it, the injury will end up rupturing and then the surgery will be more difficult. It’s not easy, because surgery never is.”

The storyline explanation for the injury is that it occurred during the Summerslam PPV match with Batista.

We’ll have an update on Cena as well as a lot more WWE related news and notes in our daily update which will go out tonight at around 11pm UK time (6pm EST).