AEW Dynamite was live from Philadelphia, but was impacted by Hurricane Ian in Florida, as several wrestlers didn’t make it to the show.
According to Fightful Select, Swerve Strickland was scheduled to appear. This is why Keith Lee was by himself in a backstage segment with AEW Tag Team Champions, The Acclaimed and Billy Gunn. Lee said that his partner wasn’t there because he was “exceptionally disgruntled”, particularly with Gunn cheating to help The Acclaimed win.
ROH Television champion, Samoa Joe, was also scheduled to be on Dynamite. With the show being in Philadelphia and having a focus on Ring of Honor, they had plans for him.
Tony Khan advises AEW talent to stay home due to hurricane
On Monday, Tony Khan sent out both an e-mail and a tweet stating that talent and staff could voluntarily stay home from TV if they were “worried about Hurricane Ian affecting your travel or home or your family life.”
Although his name wasn’t mentioned in the Select report, Jake Hager was absent from the Jericho Appreciation Society’s celebration of Chris Jericho’s “The Ocho” title win.
Rampage was filmed after Dynamite, so it’s possible that it was also affected by wrestlers who didn’t travel to Philadelphia.
The report did say there will be more to come on who else didn’t travel and how it effected the show.
