Real Reason For Claudio Castagnoli AEW Absence Revealed

Published: Jun 28, 2025 by Sanchez Taylor | Last Updated: Jun 28, 2025 by Sanchez Taylor

Sanchez has over six years of pro-wrestling news writing experience, covering the biggest news stories in WWE, NXT, AEW, TNA Wrestling and more. He has personally interviewed a number of top stars, producing exclusive content with the likes of AEW's Swerve Strickland and WWE's Nick Aldis.

The real reason for AEW star Claudio Castagnoli’s recent absence has now been revealed, after recently being name-dropped on WWE TV.

Claudio Castagnoli was one of the former WWE stars named by John Cena in his pipebomb promo on the June 20 SmackDown episode, along with Matt Cardona and Nic Nemeth.

While there was some buzz surrounding these names following these WWE mentions, Castagnoli interestingly didn’t appear on Dynamite or Collision during the following week.

Following speculation about his absence, the real reason he has been off TV has now been revealed.

Per Dave Meltzer in the latest edition of the Wrestling Observer Newsletter, Claudio Castagnoli’s absence is due to him being granted time off.

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Shooting down rumors that Castagnoli is injured, or that he was removed from AEW TV due to being mentioned on WWE TV, Meltzer wrote:

“Claudio Castagnoli has missed the TV’s over the past week.

“It’s not an injury and has nothing to do to with his name being mentioned on WWE television nor a business issue.

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“It’s nothing negative at all but he was given time off.”

Claudio Castagnoli’s return date is currently unclear.

Dave Meltzer also addressed the absence of Chris Jericho, who hasn’t wrestled since dropping the ROH World Championship to Bandido at AEW Dynasty in April.

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For the latest update on Chris Jericho’s status, click here.

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