WWE Crown Jewel “Very Much In Jeopardy”

According to Dave Meltzer on the latest episode of Wrestling Observer Radio, the status of Crown Jewel is more up in the air than ever.

Yesterday’s reports suggested that John Cena and Daniel Bryan were both conscientious objectors to the Saudi event and would be pulling out of the show. WWE‘s creative team was told in the afternoon that Cena was not going to be in the tournament and alternative plans needed to be made.

Although that was not addressed on Raw, with Cena in particular (during Kurt Angle’s promo) pushed as being at the event, the belief is that there is a lot more to the story than meets the eye.

There are two theories doing the rounds. The first is that WWE did not want to address Cena and Bryan pulling out of Crown Jewel on the same night that Roman Reigns announced his battle with cancer, so delayed it until tonight’s SmackDown or next week’s Raw. Then again, that did not stop them exploiting the tragic real life news by turning Reigns’ Shield partner Dean Ambrose heel.

The other reason, according to Meltzer, is that all is not well behind the scenes with Crown Jewel and there is a greater chance than ever that it will be cancelled or moved out of Saudi Arabia. If the latter is the case then both Bryan and Cena will still be on the show.

Pressure from the outside

Meltzer speculated previously that the only way WWE would renege on the Saudi Arabia deal would be if pressure was exerted upon them from the very top of the US government, which was seen as an unlikely scenario. Evidently that has changed in the past few days. Meltzer noted:

“There’s a lot of stuff going on there. The Saudi Arabia show is very much in jeopardy. Vince was adamant about doing the show. They will pull out if they have to pull out but it would take a lot to pull them out.

There is something to that thing that’s out there. That’s why tickets didn’t go on sale on Friday. The decision has not been made but it is a lot less [likely to happen] than it was a week ago when they were gung-ho on doing the show.

It’s in jeopardy from outside forces. I don’t know the exact dialogue but there’s absolutely pressure on [Vince] not to go now.”

Tonight’s SmackDown may give more answers, be it on the statuses of Bryan and Cena or of Crown Jewel itself. The event is proving to be one of the most turbulent in WWE history and the situation appears close to reaching breaking point. WWE are running out of time to decide their final stance on the event.

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• Crown Jewel
• saudi arabia
• John Cena
• Vince McMahon

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