Woods and Erik Absent From Raw Battle Royal Due to Scheduled Vacations

Two veteran WWE Raw tag team wrestlers, Xavier Woods and Erik, were absent from the World Heavyweight Championship number-one contenders battle royal on the October 20 episode of Raw in Sacramento because they were on previously scheduled vacations, a wrestling journalist said. Their tag partners, Kofi Kingston and Ivar, competed in the match as booked.

Wrestling journalist Bryan Alvarez wrote to subscribers on the social platform X, "Both Erik and Xavier Woods were on scheduled vacations this week, hence them not being in the battle royal." Alvarez added that the time off was planned in advance and was not related to injuries or creative changes.

Woods spent the week in Italy and shared photos and a short video from the trip on social media. He also posted a reaction to an earlier tag title change on the show, when AJ Styles and Dragon Lee defeated The Judgment Day for the tag team championships. Woods captioned his post, "Yall somehow fell in love with moments over logic and made us out to be the bad guys. Insane so glad im in Italy right now," a comment that was circulated on social platforms during and after the broadcast.

Erik, one half of The War Raiders, has not wrestled...