WWE’s ongoing deal with the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia will continue next month, as the promotion announced via WWEArabaic on Friday that the Crown Jewel event will take place on Oct. 31 at the King Fahd International Stadium in the city of Riyadh. No matches were announced, though a long list of names did appear on the official announcement — Seth Rollins, Kofi Kingston, Roman Reigns, Brock Lesnar, “The Fiend” Bray Wyatt, Braun Strowman, The New Day, Randy Orton, AJ Styles, Rey Mysterio, Hulk Hogan and Ric Flair.
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The Undertaker, who has wrestled at each of the Saudi Arabia events thus far, has also appeared in local advertising for the event. WWE’s deal with the country has been consistently shrouded in controversy, whether it was the pro-Saudi Arabian government ads that ran during the Greatest Royal Rumble or the muder of Jamal Khashoggi via Saudi agents right around the time of Crown Jewel. The shows also have the habit of bringing back retired stars for matches, such as when Shanw Michaels returned for a match between D-Generation X and The Brothers of Destruction (something he later outright said on WWE television was an embarrassment) or when Undertaker vs. Goldberg match at Super ShowDown ended so poorly the latter took to Twitter to personally apologize for his performance.
The WWE Hall of Famer later appeared on Booker T’s The Hall of Fame podcast to explain what went wrong with that match. He explained it was a combination of a turnbuckle spot that knocked him out, miscommunication and overwhelming heat.
“I can’t bounce back from it like I used to, and then the perfect storm of the heat, and the perfect storm of Taker not having the timing and not going at the same time at one point or something. Hey, at the end of the day, there’s never been a dude in the freaking ring that I couldn’t pick up, period…. It was an unfortunate deal that I shouldn’t have gone as hard as I went. And then there were a couple of people saying that he referee should have called it. Well guess what? The referee asked me 15 times how I felt and you know what I told him? Fifteen different answers. I felt different every single time that he asked me.”
It’s also worth noting that, because of WWE’s new schedule of having SmackDown on Friday nights starting next week, the Nov. 1 episode of SmackDown will likely be short-staffed and have to rely heavily on the women’s division. Wrestlers like Alexa Bliss and Natalya have pushed for women’s matches to take place on the Saudi Arabia shows, but due to local laws about women performing they have thus far been barred.
