- Title: WWE Crown Jewel 2021
- wiki: link
WWE returned to Saudi Arabia for the sixth straight year for its Crown Jewel PPV. A King and Queen of the Ring were crowed as Zelina Vega defeated Doudrop, in what might have been the worst woman’s PPV match of all time, and Xavier Woods defeated Finn Bálor. Since the finales were disconnected from the tournament (unlike classic King in the Ring tournaments which took place in a single night) both finales lacked the feel of a real payoff. At least the Woods/Balor match-up wasn’t an embarrassment (and should have been given more time given the “quality” of the rest of the card).
Speaking of embarrassments, a 54 year-old Goldberg defeated Bobby Lashley in a match no one outside of Stanford, Connecticut thought was a good idea. Shelton Benjamin and Cedric Alexander (who WWE regularly forgets are under contract, let alone a tag team) lost to The Usos in a random tag-team match without any stakes. RK-Bro successfully defended the Raw Tag Team Championship AJ Styles and Omos (a pairing that has gone about as far as it can given Omos’ limited in-ring ability).
While neither are big stars within the company, the night featured two Muslim WWE Superstars squaring off against each other when Mansoor defeated Mustafa Ali. Edge defeated Seth Rollins in a brutal Hell in a Cell match for yet another chapter in a rivalry that should have been wrapped up at least a month earlier (before devolving into Rollins breaking into Edge’s home).
None of the three big title matches resulted in a new champion (meaning the state of the WWE was left basically the same as before the night began). Big E defeated Drew McIntyre in a solid match featuring the two big men throwing each other around for about ten-minutes, Roman Reigns defeated the returning Brock Lesnar in yet another swerve ending to a Reigns match (this time with the referee getting knocked out allowing Roman and his minions to steal a victory), and Becky Lynch won her triple-threat match defeating both Bianca Belair and Sasha Banks in a match taking advantage of the history between all three women.