Here’s Why Paige Missed Her Advertised SmackDown Appearance

She would have added something. This week’s SmackDown was a rather unique show as the episode took place at the WWE Performance Center in front of no fans. That isn’t something that viewers are going to be used to seeing but it might need to become the case. As a result, the focus was on the people in front of the camera more than ever, but one of them was not there.

SmackDown was built around three big names returning to the show: Jeff Hardy, John Cena and Paige. Hardy wrestled a match and Cena went face to face with Bray Wyatt, but there was no sign of Paige. She was supposed to speak to Bayley and Sasha Banks about their disrespect to the women’s division, but she did not show up, and it turns out that there was a good reason.

Paige posted a message on her Twitter account, saying that she was not at the show due to travel issues, which was the reason given for her absence on commentary. According to Pro Wrestling Sheet, this was due to Coronavirus related travel concerns. There is no suggestion that Paige has been diagnosed with the virus. Instead of speaking with Paige, Bayley and Banks defeated Alexa Bliss and Nikki Cross in a tag match.

Sorry guys travel made it very hard for me to get there for #SmackDownLIVE with everything that’s going on. Completely out of my control. ? very sorry.. But at least @itsBayleyWWE is keeping you entertained pic.twitter.com/ymY8BN9IIK

— PAIGE (@RealPaigeWWE) March 14, 2020

According to sources, Paige did not travel to Florida for #SmackDown due to coronavirus related travel concerns which the company accommodated.

— Ryan Satin (@ryansatin) March 14, 2020

Things weren’t as they planned. Check out what happened in Paige’s absence:

Opinion: I’m not sure what it is going to mean for the future of the story that they are telling, but it’s a shame that Paige couldn’t be on the show. At least she did the right thing by staying away if there was any kind of threat. There is always another chance to do something else at a later date so maybe things can be done later. The situation has everything thrown out of wack so this is hardly a big surprise.

What did you expect Paige to say? Will she be brought back into the story later? Let us know in the comments below.

Thomas Hall has been a wrestling fan for over thirty years and has seen over 50,000 wrestling matches. He has also been a wrestling reviewer since 2009 with over 5,000 full shows covered. You can find his work at kbwrestlingreviews.com, or check out his- Amazon author page with 30 wrestling books. Get the latest and greatest in professional wrestling news by signing up for our daily email newsletter. Just look below for “GET EXCLUSIVE UPDATES” to sign up. Thank you for reading!