Notable Wrestlers Missing from the Card
Note: This is not a full list of everyone on the roster who is not scheduled for the show. It excludes some people who wouldn’t have normally been expected to appear on the show for some fashion, such as some jobbers, injured talent, etc.
Women’s Division = Outside of those who are inactive from injuries and such like Serena Deeb, we still have some missing people who could have been in the Casino Battle Royale. This includes Leva Bates, Riho and Yuka Sakazaki. I’m always curious in big matches like this with lots of people involved why some are chosen to sit it out.
Various Tag Teams = Technically, only one team could win the tournament to face The Young Bucks, which excuses Jurassic Express and Varsity Blonds, for instance. However, we’re also missing Best Friends from this card in their entirety, which is surprising considering how over Orange Cassidy is. The Hardy Family Office isn’t represented, nor are The Gunn Club, 2point0, Bear Country, etc. The Acclaimed aren’t here, either, but a good reason for that is the Max Caster situation. We’re not sure if he’s suspended or essentially fired or what. (Update: Andrade vs. Pac was taken off the card and replaced with a 10-man tag team match featuring Best Friends and Jurassic Express against The Hardy Family Office)
Brian Cage / Team Taz = When Cage first came in, I thought he would be the next world champion. Clearly, that didn’t happen, and he ended up just carrying the FTW Championship for a while before losing it to Ricky Starks when Team Taz gave Cage the boot. A follow-up match to truly end this feud would have been nice for this show.
“Hangman” Adam Page and Dark Order = Page is out for paternity leave, but Dark Order have been pushed entirely to the sidelines in the meantime out of that story. It’s not exactly something to throw up your arms about. You can’t tell a downfall storyline without suffering the downfall. If Dark Order was fighting for the tag titles, they’d be defeating the purpose of having lost the elimination match that had the title opportunity on the line.
The rest of The Pinnacle and The Inner Circle = Cash Wheeler’s injury has put FTR on the sidelines, but Wardlow and Shawn Spears have been active recently. Likewise, Sammy Guevara, Santana and Ortiz are still around, with Jake Hager likely being available. My guess is, since obviously this is more of a Jericho and MJF thing than anything else, they just had to sit this out so the two heads of the factions could battle it out in their more personal story. We might still see the other stablemates, though, if anything breaks out into a brawl, but even then, we’ve already seen the two teams against each other, so it’s not necessary.
Ethan Page and Scorpio Sky / Lance Archer = I would have thought based off the way things have been going lately that Archer’s feud with Dan Lambert, which Sky and Page are now involved in, would have manifested in some sort of tag team match. Archer gets a partner (no idea who) and they fight Men of the Year. Then again, that’s something that can happen on Dynamite or Rampage around All Out, rather than a must-have for the card itself.
Cody Rhodes / Malakai Black = Kind of sucks to come into the company, have your big angle take place on television, then Rhodes takes time off while a series of other big names come in and sort of steal the spotlight, right? Here I thought Black vs. Rhodes was a guarantee for this show, even if it had to be a rematch. Maybe AEW thought it was too loaded as it was and wants to save this for something later down the line, like Full Gear? Or, it could be that Rhodes is just too busy and knew that once again, he’d be skipping out this event, so they got the match out of the way on television beforehand instead of waiting even longer for Black to debut.
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