A lot of names were missing from AEW Dynamite’s opener on Wednesday. The Casino Battle Royale was set up to decide who would face Jon Moxley in the main event of the program with the winner going onto Forbidden Door to challenge for an interim AEW World Title.
One notable name that was missing from the match was Chris Jericho.
In this week’s Wrestling Observer Newsletter, Dave Meltzer reported that the reason Chris Jericho wasn’t on the show was that he had a family vacation booked months in advance. Jericho was never planned to be at this show, and AEW knew that he would be taking the week off.
“But the participants in the Battle Royal were weak and made the interim title idea be less than it should have. The idea should be that only the top wrestlers on the roster should be in the Battle Royal. But we didn’t have Adam Page, the former champion, who addressed it but no logical reason was given, Malakai Black, who almost never loses, Chris Jericho (who had this week off as he had booked a family vacation for this week more than three months back but from a logical standpoint nobody would know or understand why he wasn’t in the Battle Royal), Samoa Joe, Scorpio Sky, Miro, Jungle Boy, Jeff Hardy (who has been pushed as both a single and a tag team guy) , Pac, Penta, Wardlow and Brody King all should have been involved.”
Dave Meltzer of The Wrestling Observer
Of course, Jericho likely would not have won the match had he have been there as AEW prepare for Blood and Guts. Kyle O’Reilly won the battle royale and advanced, losing to Moxley in the main event.
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