Reason Chris Jericho Wasn’t In AEW Casino Battle Royale On Dynamite

Chris Jericho was one of the most notable AEW stars to not compete in this week’s Casino Battle Royale. The match was ultimately won by Kyle O’Reilly, who went on to lose to Jon Moxley in qualifier for the interim world title match at Forbidden Door. A lot of fans wondered why such a big name wasn’t being featured in a match for the championship.

Fans complained that there were too many tag teams and not enough singles stars. Bryan Danielson and Adam Cole are out with injuries. Adam Page and Wardlow also didn’t compete for reasons they spoke about on the show. For Chris Jericho, it was something entirely different.

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.”

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There were plenty of huge names who were left out of the Casino Battle Royale. Chris Jericho may be the biggest name. It was a case of unfortunate timing, as The Wizard was not going to be there either way.

Jericho should be back to his regular AEW schedule soon enough. His addition to the interim world title qualifying series would have added some intrigue. Unfortunately, it wasn’t in the cards. Now, Jericho will prepare for a hair vs hair match with Ortiz followed by the brutal Blood and Guts match on June 29th.

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