WWE superstar Dean Ambrose out for nine months after tricep surgery

Dean Ambrose will be out for around nine months after undergoing surgery on a torn tricep muscle, WWE has confirmed.

Ambrose's arm was heavily strapped during his six-man tag team match on Monday Night Raw last week and the injury was exacerbated further in a backstage attack angle with Samoa Joe.

The rehabilitation process is expected to last around nine months, ruling the Shield member out until summer 2018 at the earliest.

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Dr Jeffrey Dugas performed the surgery in Birmingham, Alabama, and confirmed the extent of the damage.

"He tore some of the distal triceps tendon where it attaches to the forearm bone, called the olecranon," Dr Dugas told WWE.com. "He basically tore about 50 percent of the triceps tendon away from the bone.

"So we repaired that back down to the bone where it tore off of. The surgery was very straightforward; we removed all of the extra bursal tissue - all of that extra swollen stuff around his elbow."

Ambrose's Shield colleague Seth Rollins recaptured the Raw tag team titles from The Bar on Christmas Day, with Jason Jordan as his partner.