Top WWE Star Will Miss Crown Jewel PLE
One of the biggest names in all of WWE won’t be making an appearance at the upcoming Crown Jewel PLE, according to a new report.
For the past five years, WWE has been doing two shows per year (when not affected by the COVID-19 pandemic) in Saudi Arabia as part of a long-term agreement. They are very profitable events for WWE where they are reportedly paid about $50 million by the Saudis to run each show.
Most years, there’s a WWE Premium Live Event in Saudi Arabia in the first half of the year like Night of Champions in May. The second PPV of the year is usually called Crown Jewel and this year’s event will take place on November 4th in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
The last time the WWE Universe saw Brock Lesnar was over two months ago at SummerSlam when he lost clean to Cody Rhodes. Lesnar shook Cody’s hand after the match and raised his hand as well, which Lesnar doesn’t do very often.
As for the future, PWInsider Elite’s Mike Johnson reports that Brock Lesnar is “not in the creative mix” for Crown Jewel and won’t be appearing at the show. That will be the first Saudi Arabia PPV that WWE has done that Lesnar won’t be a part of.
It was a call by WWE because the card has plenty of star power on it with Roman Reigns facing LA Knight for the Undisputed WWE Universal Title, Logan Paul challenging Rye Mysterio for the US Title, John Cena has been announced for the show although no specific match has been announced yet and others as well.
No date has been given for when Lesnar might return to WWE. It could be something like the Royal Rumble in January or perhaps another time. Lesnar is 46 years old and near the end of his career, but is still considered an active superstar in WWE who’s obviously going to be in the WWE Hall of Fame one day.
Several other WWE stars will also miss Crown Jewel because of a live event that will take place in Rochester, New York. Some of the big names on that show include Intercontinental Champion GUNTHER, Shinsuke Nakamura, Ricochet, Charlotte Flair and Becky Lynch.
WWE Crown Jewel to feature at least four championship matches
Since WWE Crown Jewel is less than two weeks away on November 4th, the company has announced four championship matches to this point with more of them likely on the way.
Prior to last week’s Smackdown, WWE announced that LA Knight would challenge Roman Reigns for the Undisputed WWE Universal Championship at Crown Jewel in what will be the biggest match of Knight’s WWE career to date.
This coming Friday on Smackdown, Reigns and Knight will have an official contract signing segment.
Here’s a look at the updated lineup for Crown Jewel.
* Undisputed WWE Universal Championship: Roman Reigns (c) vs. LA Knight
* World Heavyweight Championship: Seth “Freakin” Rollins (c) vs. Drew McIntyre
* Women’s World Championship: Rhea Ripley (c) vs. Shayna Baszler vs. Nia Jax vs. Raquel Rodriguez vs. Zoey Stark
* United States Championship: Rey Mysterio (c) vs. Logan Paul
WWE Crown Jewel airs on Saturday, November 4th, at 1 p.m. ET/10 a.m. PT, streaming live from Riyadh, exclusively on Peacock in the United States and on WWE Network everywhere else.