Crown Jewel (2024)

The 2024 Crown Jewel was a professional wrestling pay-per-view (PPV) and livestreaming event produced by the American company WWE. It was the sixth Crown Jewel and took place on Saturday, November 2, 2024, at the Mohammed Abdo Arena in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia as part of Riyadh Season, held primarily for wrestlers from the promotion's Raw and SmackDown brand divisions, with one match involving wrestlers from WWE's developmental brand NXT. This was the 12th event that WWE held in Saudi Arabia under a 10-year partnership in support of Saudi Vision 2030. This would also be the last Crown Jewel in Saudi Arabia as the 2025 event will instead be held in Perth, Australia.

Six matches were contested at the event with a seventh that never officially started and was ruled a no contest. The event was based around the crowning of the inaugural men's and women's Crown Jewel Champions, contested between the respective reigning men's and women's world champions of Raw and SmackDown to determine the "best of the best" in the company. In the main event, SmackDown's Undisputed WWE Champion Cody Rhodes defeated Raw's World Heavyweight Champion Gunther to become the inaugural men's Crown Jewel Champion, while earlier on the card, Raw's Women's World Champion Liv Morgan defeated SmackDown's WWE Women's Champion Nia Jax to become the inaugural Women's Crown Jewel Champion. In other prominent matches, LA Knight defeated Andrade and Carmelo Hayes to retain SmackDown's WWE United States Championship, and in the opening bout, The Bloodline (Solo Sikoa, Jacob Fatu, and Tama Tonga) defeated Roman Reigns and The Usos (Jey Uso and Jimmy Uso) in a six-man tag team match.

Production

Background

In early 2018, the American professional wrestling promotion WWE began a 10-year strategic multiplatform partnership with the Ministry of Sport (formerly General Sports Authority) in support of Saudi Vision 2030, Saudi Arabia's social and economic reform program. Crown Jewel was then established later that same year, subsequently becoming the main recurring event in this partnership, held in Riyadh, the capital of Saudi Arabia, in late October–early November as part of Riyadh Season that launched in 2019. The sixth Crown Jewel, and 12th overall event in the Saudi Arabian partnership, was announced on May 25, 2024, during King and Queen of the Ring and was scheduled to be held on Saturday, November 2, 2024, at the Mohammed Abdo Arena. Additionally, the November 4 episode of Monday Night Raw was taped at the same venue on November 3.

The event aired on pay-per-view worldwide and was available to livestream on Peacock in the United States and the WWE Network in most international markets, and it primarily featured wrestlers from the Raw and SmackDown brand divisions. This was the final Crown Jewel to air live on the standalone WWE Network, as it ceased operations in its available markets when Netflix gained the rights in January 2025. The official theme song of the event was "ARABI" by Future, Mohamed Ramadan, and Massari.

The show was broadcast on Netflix in Brazil, Chile, Spain, and New Zealand, marking the debut of Miguel Pérez and Álvaro Carrera as commentators in Castilian Spanish.

Storylines

The event included six matches that resulted from scripted storylines. Results were predetermined by WWE's writers on the Raw and SmackDown brands, while storylines were produced on WWE's weekly television shows, Monday Night Raw and Friday Night SmackDown.

During Bad Blood, WWE Chief Content Officer (CCO) Paul "Triple H" Levesque announced that at Crown Jewel, the reigning men's and women's world champions of Raw and SmackDown would face each other; however, their respective titles would not be defended and instead, the respective winners would be crowned the inaugural men's and women's Crown Jewel Champions. He also announced that this would be an annual match for Crown Jewel to determine who is the "best of the best". Liv Morgan and Nia Jax would retain their respective titles at Bad Blood—Raw's Women's World Championship and SmackDown's WWE Women's Championship—thus setting up the Women's Crown Jewel Championship match. As SmackDown's Undisputed WWE Champion Cody Rhodes did not have a title defense at Bad Blood, he was automatically entered into the men's match. His opponent was determined by Raw's World Heavyweight Championship match on the October 7 episode of Raw where Gunther retained, thus setting up the men's Crown Jewel Championship match.

On the August 5 episode of Raw, Bronson Reed brutally attacked Seth "Freakin" Rollins with six Tsunamis. Rollins sustained internal bruising and cracked ribs (kayfabe) and was ruled to be out of action for an undetermined amount of time. Rollins made a surprise return on the September 30 episode of Raw, costing Reed a Last Monster Standing match against Braun Strowman. After several subsequent altercations between Rollins and Reed, a match between the two was scheduled for Crown Jewel.

After Bad Blood went off the air, fans captured video footage of Kevin Owens attacking Cody Rhodes as he was entering his bus for teaming with Roman Reigns at Bad Blood, both of whom had a long heated rivalry with Reigns and his original Bloodline faction over the last few years, turning Owens heel for the first time since 2022. Randy Orton, a mutual friend of both Owens and Rhodes, attempted to keep the peace, but Owens attacked Orton in the parking lot during the October 11 episode of SmackDown, believing Orton chose Rhodes over him. Orton requested a match with Owens, but was denied by SmackDown General Manager Nick Aldis, who said the decision to not allow the match came from higher ups. Orton subsequently confronted WWE CCO Triple H during the October 25 episode, who in turn scheduled a match between Orton and Owens at Crown Jewel.

Since July, Andrade and Carmelo Hayes had been feuding with each other, with both men securing three victories each in a Best of Seven Series. Also during this time, LA Knight successfully defended the United States Championship against Andrade and Hayes on the September 20 and October 11 episodes of SmackDown, respectively. A seventh match (which was dubbed game seven) between Andrade and Hayes was scheduled for the October 25 episode, where the winner would also earn a future title match against Knight, who served as the special guest referee for the match, but it ended in a no-contest after Knight attacked both men. As a result of his actions, SmackDown General Manager Nick Aldis scheduled Knight to defend the title against both Andrade and Hayes in a triple threat match at Crown Jewel.

After weeks of women's tag teams interfering in each other's matches across Raw, SmackDown, and NXT to try and make a claim at challenging for the WWE Women's Tag Team Championship, as the title is defended across all three brands, the general managers of Raw, SmackDown, and NXT—Adam Pearce, Nick Aldis, and Ava, respectively—met during the October 25 episode of SmackDown and agreed that Bianca Belair and Jade Cargill would defend the title at Crown Jewel in a fatal four-way match against Damage CTRL (Iyo Sky and Kairi Sane) from Raw, Chelsea Green and Piper Niven from SmackDown, and The Meta-Four (Lash Legend and Jakara Jackson) from NXT.

After losing the Undisputed WWE Universal Championship to Cody Rhodes at WrestleMania XL in April, Roman Reigns took an indefinite hiatus while Solo Sikoa took over The Bloodline, claiming himself to be the Tribal Chief and kicking out Jimmy Uso and Paul Heyman from the group while adding The Tongans (Tama Tonga and Tonga Loa) and Jacob Fatu. At SummerSlam in August, Sikoa challenged Rhodes for the championship, during which, The Bloodline attempted to interfere, prompting Reigns to return and cost Sikoa the match. Reigns and Rhodes then reluctantly agreed to team up to face Sikoa and Fatu at Bad Blood, which saw the return of Jimmy, who helped Reigns and Rhodes win. On the following SmackDown, Jimmy told Reigns they needed help against Sikoa's Bloodline, insinuating to bring back Jimmy's brother Jey Uso, who had left the group on his own terms a year ago and was moved over to Raw, but Reigns was against the idea. Jimmy then appeared on Raw to attempt to make amends himself, but Jey declined. Sikoa and his Bloodline wanted to recruit Jey but they caused Jey to lose his Intercontinental Championship on the October 21 episode of Raw, and Jey in turn caused The Tongans to lose their WWE Tag Team Championship on the October 25 episode of SmackDown. Later, Jey and Jimmy embraced, reuniting The Usos, while Reigns watched on. On the October 28 episode of Raw, Jey agreed to appear on that week's SmackDown to make amends with Reigns, and later, it was announced that Reigns and The Usos would face The Bloodline (Sikoa, Fatu, and Tama) in a six-man tag team match at Crown Jewel.

Canceled match

At Bad Blood, Liv Morgan retained the Women's World Championship against Rhea Ripley with the assistance of the returning Raquel Rodriguez, who would join Morgan in The Judgment Day. It was reported that there had been plans for a match between Ripley and Rodriguez at Crown Jewel, however, Ripley suffered a legitimate orbital bone injury. Ripley was subsequently written off television in a segment on the October 29 episode of NXT, where Morgan and Rodriguez assaulted Ripley in the parking lot of the WWE Performance Center.