AEW held a Casino Battle Royale on Wednesday’s episode of Dynamite in the opening segment of the show that was won by Kyle O’Reilly.
In the main event, O’Reilly lost to Jon Moxley, who has advanced to the finals of the mini-tournament. Now, Moxley will face the winner of the NJPW Dominion match between Hiroshi Tanahashi and Hirooki Goto in the finals at Forbidden Door.
The Battle Royale was criticized by fans because there weren’t many big names involved in the match. Some of that is due to injury as Bryan Danielson and Adam Cole are on the sidelines from in-ring action, but other names like Adam Page and Wardlow didn’t participate.
In the case of Wardlow, he mentioned in a promo on the show that he would wait for AEW World Champion CM Punk to return from injury to go after the title, and in the meantime, he is currently focusing on the TNT Title. Chris Jericho was also another big name not in the match.
Dave Meltzer reported in the latest edition of the Wrestling Observer Newsletter that Jericho wasn’t in the match or even at the show because he had a family vacation booked months in advance.
As previously reported, Jericho had a heated confrontation with MVP last month at a hotel in Houston.