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Credit: WWE.com
With several titles on the line, a Hell in a Cell match and the return of King of the Ring as well as the first-ever Queen’s Crown tournament, Crown Jewel 2021 had the potential on paper to be a particularly noteworthy event.
Of course, potential means nothing without proper execution, and these shows in Saudi Arabia have had some of the worst botches and biggest blunders in recent years.
Was anything terribly amazing or amazingly terrible? What stood out from the results as the biggest talking points?
With the event concluded, let’s look back on what transpired and run down some of the biggest takeaways—good or bad—from Crown Jewel 2021.
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Credit: WWE
After having a month to build to this and announcing a new show called The Build To—which shows they understand the concept of preparing in advance—WWE waited until yesterday to announce a kickoff match. Then, at the start of the pre-show, it was announced Bobby Lashley vs. Goldberg had been changed from No Holds Barred to Falls Count Anywhere, whereas the Universal Championship match suddenly became No Disqualification.
No less than 15 minutes later, Kayla Braxton made the announcement that Roman Reigns and Brock Lesnar would no longer be fighting in a No Disqualification match. Instead, it was reverted back to a regular match without any stipulation.
Did WWE purposely do these switches just to get people talking? If so, mission accomplished, but the buzz on Twitter was about how stupid and disorganized everyone must be and how disappointed people were that the gimmick was pulled, rather than positive chatter.
Or, more likely, does WWE have such horrible communication issues that nobody can effectively strategize without contradicting each other, so much so that embarrassing flubs like this are happening at the eleventh hour?
The finishes for these matches should have been in the works weeks ago. At the very least, days ago, where these stipulations should have been announced on Monday Night Raw. That speaks to negligence or a lack of preparation, as even a last minute change should only be one adjustment, not two.
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Credit: WWE
Opening the main card was the fiftieth Hell in a Cell match in WWE history as Edge and Seth Rollins settled their trilogy that started at SummerSlam.
Over the years, Hell in a Cell has been watered down considerably. It was far more brutal the first few times, but a transition to the PG era, a more tame approach to hardcore matches in general and the idea of doing an annual pay-per-view that forces two or more of these per year has made this gimmick lose its luster.
However, if you judge this match in a bubble of its own and don’t compare it to something like Undertaker vs. Mick Foley—where it can’t possibly measure up—this was fantastic.
Edge and Rollins sold the animosity of their feud from start to finish, incorporated as many weapons as they could without getting too dangerous, but still managed to have some noteworthy spots. In particular, Rollins being pushed off the rope to smack into the cage and tumble outside through a table, as well as a sunset flip powerbomb from a ladder through a table were standout moments.
Hell in a Cell isn’t the anarchy it once was, but this still felt like a proper feud-ending spectacle worthy of the cage.
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Credit: WWE
Some promotions emphasize match quality in the ring as the top priority, but for WWE and Vince McMahon, spectacle trumps all—for better or worse, in varying situations.
An example of this was the match between Mansoor and Mustafa Ali, which was very much an instance of having your cake and eating it, too.
Mansoor always gets a spotlight on these Saudi Arabia shows because he’s a hometown hero, so it was no surprise he not only had a match of his own here, but came out victorious. He’s talented and had a solid match with Ali that could have been good enough for filler as is.
But even after getting his hand raised, the bigger story was what followed. Ali attacked Mansoor out of frustration from losing. Then, Saudi Arabian “karate player” (according to Michael Cole) Tarek Hamdi, who won a silver medal at the Tokyo 2020 Olympics, came out and blasted Ali with a kick.
That moment might not mean much for fans stateside, but the spectacle wasn’t for people in the United States. This was to get media coverage and buzz in Saudi Arabia and in other parts of the world.
Just the same, the match that followed that was a generic rematch between RK-Bro vs. AJ Styles and Omos for the Raw Tag Team Championship. While they’re talented, so the match was far from bad, it was nothing we hadn’t seen before.
However, Riddle came out on a camel for his entrance. It makes one wonder if the match was on the card primarily for that picture rather than anything in the ring itself.
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Credit: WWE
The Queen’s Crown Tournament had the potential to be a big deal. Finally, the women’s division had its equivalent of the King of the Ring and someone’s career could be made with this win.
Sadly, after most of the matches were less than three minutes long, the tournament felt more like a joke than something prestigious.
Then, the finale came down to Zelina Vega vs. Doudrop. Vega hasn’t had a serious push at all in her WWE career, despite being more than talented enough to justify it. Doudrop’s still finding herself with this new character that is more on the embarrassingly cartoony side than when she was a more serious competitor as Piper Niven in NXT UK.
The crowd couldn’t care less. The audience was dead silent for a match that was hard to believe, considering the size difference between these two Superstars.
It all culminated with Vega awkwardly crowning herself with zero pomp and circumstance. For someone who has such elaborate and articulate outfits on a regular basis, casually donning a crown and robe on top of a full bodysuit and t-shirt was just strange.
WWE will have to do a true crowning ceremony on Raw and those will be the pictures everyone uses going forward. That is, if this is even talked about in a few weeks.
It’s great to see Vega get a win like this, but it’s unfortunate to see that this is how her career highlight so far in WWE went down.
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Credit: WWE
After Bobby Lashley retained the WWE Championship over Goldberg at SummerSlam, The All Mighty took out Goldberg’s son, Gage. This was the entire basis for the follow-up match as Goldberg was out for vengeance.
Despite WWE having words like “kill” and “murder” on the ban list, all of Goldberg’s promos over the past few weeks have revolved around him saying he’s going to beat Lashley to within an inch of his life and then finish the job. Kill you this, murder you that, so on and so forth.
In the end, Goldberg got his win back in this Falls Count Anywhere match, but before he even exited the stage, the commentary team was talking about how Lashley was getting up from being speared off the ramp through three tables.
Goldberg emphatically stated “Don’t ever mess with my family!” Or what? You’ll win a match with no stakes and your opponent, who you wanted to flat out murder, will get up a minute later?
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Credit: WWE
With how awful and stressful everything in the world seems to be these days, a personal phrase and outlook yours truly has adopted is the simplicity of “good things are good.” If something is worth celebrating, it’s as easy as that, and we should all strive to have as much positivity in our lives as possible.
Nobody exudes the power of positivity more than The New Day and after KofiMania, followed by Big E’s Money in the Bank cash-in to win the WWE Championship, the next phase of this was Xavier Woods becoming King of the Ring.
This is a dream he’s had for his entire life. He’s spoken about it for years, bringing it up at random times just for the sake of speaking it into existence, well before WWE planned to resurrect the tournament.
King Finn Balor would have been great and we might still see that in the future, but this was a Woods story. Thankfully, it ended with the right finish: Woods wearing the crown, marking out over how he finally achieved his goal.
Not everyone wins the Royal Rumble to go on to capture the WWE Championship in the main event of WrestleMania, but this might be just as good in his eyes.
What could possibly be bad about seeing someone get the recognition they deserve and cross off a huge bucket list dream like this? Let’s enjoy this alongside Woods!
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Credit: WWE
The baffling way WWE handled adding and taking away the No Disqualification match aside, the way the Universal Championship match went down implies this is far from over, even after six years and 10 matches.
While this particular match was good, WWE ran this into the ground in the past and seem poised to stretch this out another six months where it will overstay its welcome once more.
Paul Heyman strategically put the title belt between the two of them, not making a decision on who he was backing. That story has no conclusion and WWE will milk it again, pondering who he really supports.
The Usos interfered after The Beast Incarnate had a rightful win had referee Charles Robinson not been taken out. This protects Lesnar so he can challenge again and say he deserves a rematch.
More than likely, WWE is going to mess around with Reigns against filler opponents for the next two months before the Road to WrestleMania 2022 season begins, wherein Creative will simply go back to the well of Reigns vs. Lesnar for their third WrestleMania match.
People didn’t want to see it the first time. It was utterly pointless the second time and wasted a year and a half of the title just so Reigns could beat Lesnar at SummerSlam instead. Now, we’re back to this again.
Maybe in seven months, something interesting will happen with The Tribal Chief, but the next few will probably be a lot of reruns.
Anthony Mango is the owner of the wrestling website Smark Out Moment and the host of the podcast show Smack Talk on YouTube, iTunes and Stitcher. You can follow him on Facebook and elsewhere for more.
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