WWE's last pay-per-view event, Hell in a Cell, started off strong with an excellent match between Becky Lynch and Sasha Banks. But then it ended in disaster, as WWE wrote itself into a corner with its booking of "The Fiend" Bray Wyatt, refusing to have him go over Seth Rollins and ending a Hell in a Cell match in a no contest. Fan backlash to this decision was quite severe, and it has caused fans to start turning on Rollins.
It hasn't been all that long since Hell in a Cell, and it's safe to say that the bad taste it left in peoples' mouths is still there for some. Luckily for WWE, its next event is Crown Jewel, taking place in Saudi Arabia and far away from the "smarks" that may heckle the product. This year's Crown Jewel retains the questionable ethics of WWE putting the show on at all, and adds in a couple of matches that one would usually expect to see at a WrestleMania. The card is an interesting one with some mainstream appeal, but whether or not it will actually be good remains to be seen.
Here is the WWE Crown Jewel card, which we will update with the results and reviews of the matches as the show progresses. Crown Jewel takes place today beginning at 10:00am PT, so WWE fans that have a day job will have to miss out.
WWE Championship Match: Brock Lesnar (c) w/ Paul Heyman vs. Cain Velasquez w/ Rey Mysterio
Winner: Brock Lesnar. UFC is not particularly exciting all the time. Sometimes it just consists of dudes pushing each other into corners. The benefit of professional wrestling is that the fights are "worked," so they can be presented as more consistently entertaining than a "real" fight would be. But what we got here was essentially a worked UFC fight, which meant that it was pretty low on excitement. We got one good kick from Velasquez, and then he was forced to submit to Lesnar's Kimura Lock. All the hype for Velasquez is now gone, and the fact that Cain has legitimately defeated Brock in a real fight makes it harder to swallow such a quick and decisive victory for Lesnar. When the match was over, we got some fun chair-swinging shenanigans as Mysterio attempted to avenge his son's frequent beatings on WWE SmackDown and Raw, and he actually seemed to get the upperhand.
Grade: C-
Tag Team Turmoil Match for World Cup
Winners: The OC. There was some decent enough action in this match, but the crowd cared progressively less as it went on. The real standout tag team of the match was Heavy Machinery, as Otis was incredibly over with the Saudi Arabian crowd. It was a bit of a bummer to see them eliminated, but the crowd really stopped caring once The New Day was eliminated by The OC. Karl Anderson and Luke Gallows can be great talents when used properly, but WWE has buried them so much that it's hard to fault the crowd for not caring about them. The Viking Raiders and OC ended the turmoil match with some of the weakest action out of the entire bout, so the whole thing ended on a whimper. The title of "best tag team in the world" didn't really seem to matter to the crowd. But at least there was still some decent wrestling in this match.
Grade: C
Cesaro vs. Mansoor
Winner: Mansoor. Mansoor can talk, can wrestle, and has a great look. Why does he pretty much only appear on the Saudi Arabia shows? And why isn't Cesaro a world champion yet? At any rate, this match was fun with smooth as silk wrestling. Something that hurt it was how obvious it was that Mansoor was going to win. We know how WWE treats Cesaro, and there was no way the company was actually going to let him win the match. Despite this, the Saudi Arabian crowd was really into this fight, clearly more invested in this match than any other match that's been on the card so far. Hopefully we see Mansoor used more regularly on other WWE programming, and hopefully WWE finally starts to give Cesaro the push he deserves.
Grade: A-
Braun Strowman vs. Tyson Fury
Winner: Tyson Fury. Yikes. This match was even worse than many expected. Fury moved slowly, likely due to his lack of professional wrestling experience, and everything he did looked sloppy. He hesitated before moving into spots, and the whole thing looked amateurish. Strowman did his best to add some umpth to this match, but all this did was further bury Strowman. The match ended when Fury punched Strowman in the face and Strowman ate a count-out loss. While some may look at this finish as a way to "protect" Strowman, it just makes him look pathetic since he lost to someone who is so green and far less physically imposing. At this point, Strowman is damaged goods and it's going to be hard to buy any attempt by the WWE to push him, especially when they have him lose to non-wrestlers like Fury.
Grade: F
United States Championship Match: AJ Styles (c) w/ Karl Anderson and Luke Gallows vs. Humberto Carrillo
Winner: AJ Styles. Humberto Carrillo and AJ Styles had a better match on Raw this past week, but what was here was serviceable. The crowd didn't seem to care. There wasn't anything too botchy besides a boot on the apron from Carrillo that missed by a mile. The finish came via Phenomenal Forearm, and then Styles celebrated in the ring with his OC teammates.
Grade: C+
Lacey Evans vs. Natalya
Winner: Natalya. The first-ever women's wrestling match in Saudi Arabia. There's no denying the history behind this match, though the women had to wrestle in long baggy shirts. Someone also threw a water bottle at both of them when they were making their entrances. The women gave it their all though, with this being one of Lacey's better matches. The bitter history between these two made it a little weird that they were just having a straight-forward wrestling match, though. Finish came when Natalya forced Lacey to submit to the Sharpshooter. Most of the crowd was really into this match, though there were some very upset-looking individuals here and there.
Grade: B
Team Hogan vs. Team Flair
Winners: Team Hogan. The early sections of this match were boring, and Rusev didn't really come across as legitimately angry at Lashley. There were multiple times where Rusev could have attacked Lashley, but stopped because someone was out of position or whatever. In any case, things really picked up during the comeback at the end, with everyone getting in impressive moves and the crowd going absolutely nuts for Roman Reigns. Randy Orton was also insanely over, and his sequence with Reigns was one of the highlights of the entire night. Reigns ultimately picked up the victory of his team after a Spear. Oh, and Ricochet was dressed as All Might for some reason.
Grade: B
Falls Count Anywhere Match for the Universal Championship: Seth Rollins (c) vs. "The Fiend" Bray Wyatt
Winner: "The Fiend" Bray Wyatt. Okay. Since WWE was going to have "The Fiend" win the title off Seth anyway, why not just have him win at Hell in a Cell? Unless Wyatt going over here is just in response to the severe fan backlash from the Hell in a Cell ending. This match was hard to see due to the "The Fiend" Bray Wyatt's red lighting gimmick, which is getting old and should be phased out. The problem with WWE weapons matches is that everything comes across as so planned and sterile. It's all been done before, and when they do new things, they're over the top and goofy. In this instance, we saw Bray Wyatt get blown up and then Seth be blinded by a firework explosion that didn't get close to his face. Wyatt ended up winning the match with Sister Abigail. Crowd went home happy, but this match was a bore outside of a few spots.
Grade: C