It sounds like lot of AEW wrestlers missed Dynamite due to COVID

Yesterday’s (June 29) broadcast of AEW Dynamite featured the annual Blood & Guts match, which took up roughly half of the two hour show.

The other hour of the episode included segments like Orange Cassidy vs. Ethan Page, Luchasaurus vs. Serpentico, Ass Boys & Max Caster vs. Danhausen & FTR, Jade Cargill vs. Leila Gray, as well as Christian Cage being a douchebag on the microphone.

If some of those matches seem unusual to you, there might be a good explanation for it. According to Wrestling Observer Radio’s Dave Meltzer, a lot of AEW wrestlers were not available yesterday due to COVID:

“There were a lot of people who were not available for the show because of COVID, and that’s why they did not announce the show until [late] other than the Blood & Guts…”

“The show was being put together late because of fears and things like that, so that’s why…besides the Blood & Guts match, the matches themselves are not exactly [what you expect on Dynamite].”

This is the part where some fans will look at the lineups for last night’s Dynamite and tomorrow’s Rampage (spoilers here) and try to figure out which wrestlers weren’t there who probably should have appeared on the fallout shows after Forbidden Door. It’s tough to fit a lot of the roster onto a Dynamite episode that is already committing half of its time to one match, so that’s an extra factor to keep in mind.

Did the matches and segments during the first hour of Dynamite seem out of the ordinary to you and/or hurt the quality of the show? Let us know what you think in the comments below, Cagesiders.