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WWE News: Reason Why Seth Rollins Missed WWE Live Events, Plus Updates on AJ Styles, Sasha Banks and Becky Lynch

TJR Wrestling

There are some minor injury issues with some big WWE names. Seth Rollins and Sasha Banks were both advertised for Raw live events this past weekend, but neither of them appeared at the shows.

Seth Rollins, who is set to challenge Brock Lesnar for the Universal Championship at WrestleMania 35 on April 7, is dealing with some injury that happened before last Monday’s angle with Brock Lesnar according to John Pollock of Post Wrestling. The report from Pollock notes that Rollins “will only be doing promos with no physicality for the next month on television.” Since it happened before Raw’s segment where Rollins was attacked by Lesnar, perhaps it happened during the Royal Rumble match last Sunday.

There was additional information from Pollock saying that Rollins is not expected to be on Raw tonight, but PWInsider is reporting that Rollins is in Portland where Raw is, so he might be on the show.

The Rollins injury is a sore back according to the Wrestling Observer Radio show.

TJR Thoughts: It sucks that Rollins is hurt, but it doesn’t appear to be that serious. Since WrestleMania is two months away, Rollins should be good to go for the match against Lesnar. Since Rollins isn’t expected on Raw, they can say he was hurt by Lesnar, who dropped him with the F5 six times last week on Raw. It will be easy for the announcers to say that Rollins isn’t there on Raw due to Lesnar’s attack. If you’re going to a Raw house show in the next month, that means you likely won’t see Rollins either. That sucks for the fans.

* AJ Styles was “dinged up recently” according to Post Wrestling, but he is likely going to be cleared to return to the ring on Smackdown this week. Styles isn’t advertised for a match, though, so WWE may just keep him out of the ring.

* Sasha Banks was banged up after her match with Ronda Rousey after the Royal Rumble last Sunday according to Post Wrestling, so Banks was off the live events this weekend as well. It was supposed to be Banks, Bayley and Natalya vs. The Riott Squad in a six-woman tag, but it ended up as Natalya and Bayley vs. Ruby Riott and Sarah Logan with Liv Morgan on the outside, as you can read in our live event report from Friday.

Banks and Bayley will team up on Raw to face the random team of Alicia Fox and Nikki Cross with the winners advancing to the Elimination Chamber Women’s Tag Team Title match.

* Becky Lynch did not work the Smackdown live events the last two nights. She was advertised to face Asuka and Charlotte Flair in triple threat matches, but WWE chose to give her the weekend off since she is selling a knee injury from the Royal Rumble and from last week’s Smackdown.

As we reported over the weekend, Lynch is expected to appear on Raw tonight after she was invited by Stephanie McMahon.

Lynch “refused medical attention” on Smackdown, which is classic WWE booking where they want to show that a babyface wrestler is tough, which is supposed to make the fans like them more.