Hiya!

Okay, yesterday, I wrote a piece about how I don’t really care about the Crown Jewel Championships the WWE implemented. It just seems so unnecessary but I guess they had to make it so the Crown Jewel pay-per-view event came off like a big deal than the rest of their pay-per-view events the WWE put out each year.

Still, I shouldn’t really care if they do tie a useless title to Crown Jewel. What I do care about is if the show is actually good. So, let’s go check out what went down during the pay-per-view event, shall we?

The first match of the night pitted the OG Bloodline, featuring Roman Reigns and the reunited Usos, Jimmy and Jey, taking on the New Bloodline, which had Solo Sikoa, Tama Tonga and Jacob Fatu. I will say it was good to see the Usos as a team again. Jacob Fatu looked pretty impressive in general but this does kind of affect Solo Sikoa’s standing as, when he was part of the OG Bloodline, he was the enforcer and the muscle of the group. Here, he comes off as less of a monster, which is par for the course when a heel is elevated to the leader position. Still, it does seem weird how much less scary he’s become.

The finish came after the botched saved by Jimmy Uso after Solo Sikoa hit a Samoan Spike on Reigns. All hell broke loose with both teams taking out each other, leaving only the Original Tribal Chief with the New Tribal Chief in the ring. Reigns set up for a spear but Tama Tonga tried to distract him. Reigns retaliated by accidentally throwing Tonga into the referee, knocking the official out. Reigns tried to hit a superman punch to Fatu but Fatu countered with a big headbutt. Fatu continued the offense on Reigns and then took out the Usos with a suicide dive to the outside. Solo then recovered enough and connected with two Samoan Spikes to Reigns to get the pinfall victory for the New Bloodline.

The New Bloodline wasn’t done, however. They beat down on Reigns and the Usos and, just as Solo Sikoa was about to hit a splash to Reigns while Reigns was wearing a steel chair around his neck, Sami Zayn moseyed to the ring! Solo tried to convince Zayn to join his side and it looked like Zayn was going to hug the New Tribal Chief. It was actually a ruse as Sami hit an exploder suplex on Solo. This allowed Reigns and the Usos to recover enough to take out the New Bloodline. In the chaos, Reigns tried to hit Solo with a superman punch and Zayn went for his helluva kick to Solo. Solo ducked, leading to Zayn kicking Reigns in the head by accident, sowing some distrust between Zayn and the New Bloodline.

The match itself was pretty unmemorable as, while the action was okay, nothing really stood out. The entrance of Sami Zayn into the mix did spice things up and opens the door to him being part of the OG Bloodline’s team in the upcoming Survivor Series: Wargames. While this match does push the story forward, the match itself wasn’t anything to write home about.

The next match of the night was a Fatal Four Way for the Women’s Tag Team Championships. This had Jade Cargill and Bianca Belair defending the titles against Damage CTRL’s IYO SKY and Kairi Sane, Meta Four’s Lash Legend and Jakara Jackson and the team of Chelsea Green and Piper Niven. Lash Legend looked pretty impressive in her main roster debut, showing off her power. Chelsea Green proved once again why comedy wrestling can still mix with serious wrestling if done properly.

However, I do have to mention the action here was definitely not flawless. There were some obvious botches, like when IYO SKY tried to springboard off Kairi Sane but didn’t stick the landing. The worst botch was when Legend and Cargill were trading blows and Cargill missed a bicycle kick but Legend had to sell the miss like she was knocked silly. This one really looked terrible.

The finish saw all teams hitting double team moves on one another, with Chelsea and Niven taking control over Cargill. Piper set up for a Vader Bomb while Green attempted to hit the Unprettier to Jade. Jade managed to get out of the move and slam Green. Unfortunately, Piper never saw the switch up and hit her own tag team partner with the Vader Bomb. Cargill then set up Niven with an electric chair, which was very impressive. Belair then hit a flying clothesline to Piper, reminiscent of the Legion of Doom’s Doomsday Device, to get the pinfall victory and retain their Women’s Tag Team Championships.

I will say, despite the botches, this was a good match. It’s nice to see tag teams actually performing double team moves again. The chaos by the end was fun to see as well. Strangely enough, I was more into the match whenever Bianca Belair and Jade Cargill weren’t involved in the action because the other teams seemed to be trying their darndest here. The champs just didn’t do much to get me hyped up.

The next match had Seth “Freakin'” Rollins take on “Big” Bronson Reed. Right off the bat, I will have to say I have an issue with how the match started because, well, it didn’t start immediately. While I get the concept of a big brawl before the bell rings means both competitors are out for blood, at a certain point, the official would need to call a no contest! The brawl just went on for too long and, in the end, was inconsequential as no one really had the advantage when the bell finally rang to officially start the match! Yeah, you can say Rollins was hurt because he was thrown into a chair before the bell rang. However, he immediately rallied after dodging a tsunami attempt from Reed! So, what was the point?

The finish came after Reed tried to hit Rollins with the steel steps when the match spilled to the outside. Rollins managed to counter with a chop block, causing Reed to trip and slamming his face into the steps. Rollins then hit a Curb Stomp to Reed while his head laid on the steel steps. Rollings rolled into the ring but Reed managed to beat the 10-count. Rollins, however, hit another Curb Stomp while Reed was getting in. Rollins put the exclamation point by climbing the top rope and delivering a third and final super Curb Stomp to finally get the pinfall victory.

This was a good match as Bronson Reed did look really good here. Kudos also has to go to Seth Rollins for his selling ability and also how he took some of those hits, like that awesome looking sitout senton. I do have to say it was a mistake for Rollins to get the victory as he didn’t need it. If the WWE wants to promote Reed as this new monster, he needed to win here to establish him as a main eventer. I actually do think him losing will hurt him in the long run.

The next match was the Women’s Crown Jewel match. This had the RAW Women’s Champion, Liv Morgan, taking on the Smackdown Women’s Champion, Nia Jax. There were some big spots, like Jax hitting a Samoan Drop from the second turnbuckle. Still, the match only started to really get good was when Tiffany Straton tried to cash in her Money in the Bank briefcase as this is when all hell broke loose, leading to the finishing moments.

The closing moments saw Tiffany try to make it Tiffy Time by inserting herself into the match with the Money in the Bank cash in but Liv Morgan’s new enforcer, Raquel Rodriguez, played spoiler. Jax then went after Raquel and Raquel escaped by jumping down and doing a stun gun maneuver to the Smackdown Women’s Champion. The RAW Women’s Champ then hit a codebreaker from the second rope but couldn’t get the pin. Raquel and Morgan then went after Straton but Jax nailed all three with an avalanche. Jax then set up for a Banzai Drop/Annihilator but “Dirty” Dominik Mysterio tossed in the Money in the Bank briefcase, distracting the official. This allowed Raquel to connect with a big boot to Jax while the referee had her attention towards Dom. Morgan then hit her Ob-Liv-ion finisher to Jax to become the inaugural Women’s Crown Jewel Champion.

Right on the outset, this match rubbed me the wrong way because I don’t really care for either Liv Morgan or Nia Jax. So, yeah, this might color my opinion of the match. Even so, it was hard for me to really get interested in what was happening in the ring because the action was, at best, just okay. I do wish they would push the Tiffany Staton storyline forward as all of these fake cash ins are getting boring.

The next match was supposed to be a grudge match between Kevin Owens and Randy Orton but it never materialized. This is because everything got so heated before the bell even rang! Owens went on a rampage by hitting Orton with a steel chair and nailing the referee with a stunner. Orton retaliated with chair shots of his own and Orton also taking out another WWE official as well as Smackdown General Manager, Adam Pearce with an RKO! The brawl continued from there and into the crowd.

The brawl eventually ended with Owens laying out Orton on a table. Owens then climbed to the upper box area and hit a frog splash. Both Owens and Orton were laid out, too beat up to continue. I will say the brawl, while not really doing anything to close out the feud, was entertaining enough to hold my attention, especially with random officials (shoutouts to Jamie Noble for getting coldcocked by Kevin Owens and the announcers not even mentioning his name).

The second to the last match had LA Knight defending his United States Championship in a Triple Threat against Andrade and Carmelo Hayes. I do like how all 3 competitors were involved with most of the spots instead of one guy getting tossed outside so the other 2 can have their mini-match. There were some really great moments, like Andrade hitting a surprise moonsault to Knight to the outside when you thought he was going to hit a prone Carmelo and Hayes hitting a codebreaker to Andrade while landing on Knight with a senton. Knight doing a little springboard double elbow drop to his opponents was cool, too.

The finish saw Andrade setting up Hayes for a superplex but Knight sprang up to the top rope but botched the landing. He recovered enough to hit a super back suplex anyway. This opened up Hayes to hit his Nothing But Net finisher on Knight but Andrade broke up the pin. Andrade then tried to hit a double underhook DDT but Hayes pushed him into the corner. Carmelo slammed Andrade’s neck into the top turnbuckle and then went for a spinning facebuster but Knight came out of nowhere while Hayes was hitting the facebuster, hitting him with a well-timed BFT finisher! Knight managed to get the pinfall victory to retain his United States Championship!

This was a very well-executed match. I love how there was very little lying around and everyone was involved throughout it all. I will say the highlights were basically Andrade and Hayes’ high flying skills but LA Knight added the necessary spice to really heat things up.

The final match of the night had Cody Rhodes, the Undisputed WWE Universal Champion, and GUNTHER, the WWE World Heavyweight Champion, compete for the Men’s Crown Jewel Championship. Both men did a lot of back and forth, with Cody and GUNTHER trading the advantage with one another. There was also a lot of good chain wrestling and reversals, which really built up the momentum as the match drew on. I can’t say there were any real memorable spots but that’s because the entire match felt like a big memorable spot as things just got more intense the longer it went on.

The finish came after GUNTHER kicked out of Cody’s Cross Rhodes. The American Nightmare tried to connect with a second one but GUNTHER got out of it with a snapmare. Rhodes ducked under one of the Ring General’s chops and scaled the corner to try to hit a super Cody Cutter. GUNTER tried to reverse it by attempting to hook in a sleeper, which he had been doing throughout the entire match. Cody, however, rolled backwards, pinning GUNTHER to the mat for a 3-count to win the match and become the inaugural Men’s Crown Jewel Champion.

This was a fantastic match from start to end. Like I said, beautiful chain wrestling and both Cody and GUNTHER played up to their respective strengths. I will say the match did feel a little long and if they shaved off around 5 minutes, this would be a downright excellent match.

Even though the last 2 matches were great, the rest of them were rather ho-hum. I will say they tried to build a good card but most of the bouts just didn’t tickle my fancy nor get me excited for what’s to come. I say just watch the last 2 matches and you’re golden.

Byee!

Have you seen the latest Crown Jewel pay-per-view by the WWE? What did you think of it? Let me know in the comments section below!