Riho was the inaugural AEW Women’s World Champion, but she has not been able to work in the company since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. She has remained in Japan since then.
On Wrestling Observer Radio, Dave Meltzer talked about Riho’s predicament. He noted that AEW has no desire of having her come to the US just for a week’s worth of tapings because that would mean she will have to self-quarantine for two weeks once she returns to Japan.
He added that AEW simply does not have anything huge in mind for Riho.
“They can bring her in. The thing with her is she lives in Japan and then she’d have to quarantine to go back, and that’s a tough deal. If she was living here she’d be on TV every week. They do bring PAC back and forth, which is kind of a hassle. He comes here for a couple of weeks, then he has to quarantine for two weeks and then go home. Two weeks just to get home, it’s not worth staying home for a week if you’ve got to take two weeks to get home, so it’s really tough. It’s just a tough business right now, it’s a tough world.”
“That would be the same with Riho and I think that, like with PAC, I think they’ve got ideas for PAC to be in major matches, so it makes it worth doing, but Riho – it’s not like there’s going to be great major matches for her, so it’s kind of like, why put her through this I guess. They haven’t used CIMA and T-Hawk and Lindaman either for the same reason, or similar reasons, because it’s just not worth bringing them in for something that’s not major and then they have to quarantine and then bring them back. It’s just tough.”
We will have to see when Riho will be able to make her return to the company.
