Kyle O’Reilly has been absent from AEW programming in recent weeks. His last actual match with the promotion was on the December 29th New Year’s Smash show. He teamed with Bobby Fish and Adam Cole that night and defeated Trent Beretta, Chuck Taylor, and Orange Cassidy.
According to a report from the Wrestling Observer Newsletter, O’Reilly has not been around recently due to the birth of his child.
“The reason Bobby Fish & Kyle O’Reilly haven’t been out with Adam Cole and the Young Bucks thing has stopped is because O’Reilly was given time off since his wife just had a baby. It is expected to resume when he returns,” wrote Dave Meltzer.
This week on AEW Dynamite, however, Jay White debuted and helped Adam Cole and the Young Bucks attack the Best Friends in the back. In storyline, Cole brought White in without running it by the Young Bucks first. So now several dynamics are at play with the Elite, former members of Undisputed Era, and Bullet Club now with overlapping members.
O’Reilly was recently on The Sessions with Renee Paquette and spoke about why he decided to leave WWE. One thing that led to him signing with AEW is that he heard WWE was no longer looking for “pro wrestlers”.
“‘We don’t want pro rasslers’ was something I heard,” O’Reilly said. “And it was like ‘alright but I am a pro wrestler. And I want to be a pro wrestler still. So I want to go where I can be a pro wrestler.’ And I know that the things are the same, sports entertainment, wrestling, it’s all the same. But I don’t know if everyone looks at it that way.”
H/T to Wrestling Inc. for the above transcription.
