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WWE News: Crown Jewel Lineup Update, Next Week’s Smackdown on FS1

By John Canton • Published 19th October 2019
TJR Wrestling

There were a few updates to the WWE Crown Jewel lineup on last night’s Smackdown. Crown Jewel takes place on Thursday, October 31 in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.

For the 5-on-5 tag team match pitting Team Hulk Hogan against Team Ric Flair, we found out the five guys on team Hogan. It’s going to be captained by Roman Reigns along with Rusev, Ricochet, Ali and Shorty G, which is the new official name of Chad Gables. Yes…that’s really his name. Meanwhile, Team Flair will have Randy Orton as the captain along with “King” Baron Corbin, Bobby Lashley, Shinsuke Nakamura and one more wrestler yet to be announced.

Hogan and Flair are advertised to appear on next week’s Smackdown, which is six days before Crown Jewel. They have two more episodes of Raw and one more episode of Smackdown before Crown Jewel. After Crown Jewel on October 31, WWE is going to charter a plane and fly the wrestlers back to US for the Smackdown episode on November 1.

It’s also worth noting for the Seth Rollins vs. Bray Wyatt match for the Universal Title, it’s a Falls Count Anywhere match and WWE also added that the match “can’t be stopped for any reason.” I’ve never seen a match graphic with that before.

I think it’s obvious that WWE knows the WWE Universe hated the No Contest finish at Hell in a Cell, so they are telling the fans the match won’t be stopped this time and there will probably be a winner.

Some of the names that aren’t expected to go to Crown Jewel are Kevin Owens, Daniel Bryan and Sami Zayn. With Zayn, it’s due to his Syrian background while Owens and Bryan just don’t want to go in part due to their friendship with Zayn as well as feelings on certain laws in Saudi Arabia. I assume Aleister Black also can’t go because of some tattoos that are offensive. I remember that being a story early in the year. No women’s wrestlers are likely to be there too.

Here’s the lineup for now.

WWE Championship: Brock Lesnar (c) vs. Cain Velasquez

Falls Count Anywhere Match for the Universal Championship: Seth Rollins (c) vs. “The Fiend” Bray Wyatt

Braun Strowman vs. Tyson Fury

Five on Five Tag Team Match: Team Hulk Hogan (Roman Reigns, Rusev, Ricochet, Ali and Shorty G) vs. Team Ric Flair (Randy Orton, Baron Corbin, Bobby Lashley, Shinsuke Nakamura and one more)

Tag Team Turmoil Match: The New Day (Kofi Kingston, Big E and Xavier Woods), Raw Tag Team Champions Dolph Ziggler and Robert Roode, Smackdown Tag Team Champions The Revival (Scott Dawson and Dash Wilder), The Viking Raiders (Erik and Ivar), Zack Ryder and Curt Hawkins, Heavy Machinery (Tucker and Otis), Lucha House Party (Kalisto, Gran Metalik and Lince Dorado), The OC (AJ Styles, Luke Gallows and Karl Anderson), and The B Team (Bo Dallas and Curtis Axel).

Cesaro vs. Mansoor

In other WWE news, next week’s Smackdown will be on Fox Sports 1 in the United States because Fox will be showing a World Series game. This is the only week of the year where Smackdown will not be on Fox because the deal was to put it on Fox. We knew about this months ago.

It was advertised on Smackdown that WWE Champion Brock Lesnar will be there along with his Crown Jewel opponent Cain Velasquez for some face to face showdown.

As mentioned earlier, Hulk Hogan and Ric Flair will be on Smackdown as well.

That’s all for now. Have a great weekend.