Crown Jewel (2025)

The 2025 Crown Jewel, also promoted as Crown Jewel: Perth, was a professional wrestling pay-per-view (PPV) and livestreaming event produced by the American company WWE. It was the seventh Crown Jewel and took place on Saturday, October 11, 2025, at the Perth Arena in Perth, Australia and featured wrestlers from the promotion's Raw and SmackDown brand divisions. The event was centered around the men's and women's Crown Jewel Championship matches, which featured the respective men's and women's world champions of Raw and SmackDown against each other to determine the better champion.

This was the first Crown Jewel held outside of Saudi Arabia, as all previous Crown Jewel events were held in the country's capital of Riyadh. Like many of WWE's events, however, it was still sponsored by Saudi Arabia's General Entertainment Authority via Riyadh Season. The event was John Cena's final pay-per-view and livestreaming event appearance in Australia and outside the United States as an in-ring performer due to his retirement from professional wrestling at the end of 2025.

Five matches were contested at the event. The main event was the 2025 men's Crown Jewel Championship match, which was won by Raw's World Heavyweight Champion Seth Rollins, who defeated SmackDown's Undisputed WWE Champion Cody Rhodes. The 2025 Women's Crown Jewel Championship match saw Raw's Women's World Champion Stephanie Vaquer defeat SmackDown's WWE Women's Champion Tiffany Stratton. In the other matches on the card, John Cena defeated AJ Styles; who had announced his own retirement plans in the Kickoff show, Iyo Sky and Australia-native Rhea Ripley defeated The Kabuki Warriors (Asuka and Kairi Sane) in a tag team match, and in the opening bout, Australia-native Bronson Reed defeated Roman Reigns in an Australian Street Fight.

The event received generally positive reviews, with the Cena vs. Styles bout being universally acclaimed by fans and critics alike, while the main event and the tag team match were also praised.

Production

Background

Crown Jewel is a professional wrestling pay-per-view (PPV) and livestreaming event produced by the American promotion WWE since 2018, typically held in late October–early November. From its inception until 2024, it was the main recurring event that took place in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia as part of a 10-year partnership with the country in support of Saudi Vision 2030, Saudi Arabia's social and economic reform program, and it was held as part of the annual Riyadh Season festivities. Beginning with the 2024 event, Crown Jewel became centered around the men's and women's Crown Jewel Championship matches, held between the respective men's and women's world champions of WWE's Raw and SmackDown brand divisions to determine who is the better champion.

In February 2025, following the success of the 2024 Elimination Chamber, which was held in Perth, Western Australia, WWE announced that they would be returning to Australia sometime in 2025 for a takeover weekend that would include a PPV and livestreaming event and tapings of Monday Night Raw and Friday Night SmackDown. As a result of the Royal Rumble in January 2026 being held as part of Saudi Arabia's 2025–2026 Riyadh Season, on May 2, 2025, the Australian PPV and livestreaming event was announced as the seventh Crown Jewel, also promoted as Crown Jewel: Perth, scheduled for the Perth Arena on Saturday, October 11, 2025, marking the first Crown Jewel to not be held in Saudi Arabia. SmackDown was also confirmed for October 10 and Raw on October 13 at the same venue. The official theme song of the event was "One Eyed Bastard" by Green Day.

In addition to airing on traditional PPV worldwide, the event was also available to livestream on ESPN's direct-to-consumer streaming service in the United States, Netflix in most international markets, and the WWE Network in any remaining countries that had not yet transferred to Netflix due to pre-existing contracts. This marked the first Crown Jewel to livestream on Netflix following the WWE Network's merger under the service in January 2025 in those areas, and to livestream on ESPN in the United States, as WWE's contract with Peacock to air main roster PPV and livestreaming events expired at the conclusion of Clash in Paris in August.

Storylines

The event included five 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.

At Wrestlepalooza, 2024 men's Crown Jewel Champion Cody Rhodes retained SmackDown's Undisputed WWE Championship. During the post-event show, he was confronted by Raw's World Heavyweight Champion Seth Rollins. With neither having a scheduled title defense before Crown Jewel, this set up the 2025 men's Crown Jewel Championship match, which WWE Chief Content Officer Paul "Triple H" Levesque subsequently confirmed. Also at Wrestlepalooza, Stephanie Vaquer won Raw's Women's World Championship, while on the September 26 episode of SmackDown, Tiffany Stratton retained SmackDown's WWE Women's Championship, thus confirming the 2025 Women's Crown Jewel Championship match.

In a promo prior to his match at Clash in Paris, John Cena listed wrestlers he wanted to face before his retirement from in-ring competition at the end of 2025, which included former rival AJ Styles. Following his loss at Wrestlepalooza, Cena posted on X about having a match against Styles, which Styles responded, saying he wanted the match as well. Triple H subsequently confirmed a match between them for Crown Jewel. According to Fightful Select, the match was built over social media because Cena had no scheduled TV dates before Crown Jewel.

At Night 2 of SummerSlam, Rhea Ripley and Iyo Sky competed for the Women's World Championship, though neither won. Afterwards, Ripley and Sky maintained a friendly relationship, much to the dismay of Sky's former Damage CTRL stablemates The Kabuki Warriors (Asuka and Kairi Sane), but more specifically Asuka, who confronted Sky multiple times, claiming that Sky should end her friendship with Ripley. At Wrestlepalooza, Sky was scheduled to face Stephanie Vaquer for the vacant title, where Asuka stated that she and Sane would help her win, but Sky declined their help; Sky subsequently lost the match. Two nights later on Raw, Asuka confronted Vaquer, stating that Sky should have won the title instead. Ripley then interrupted her, stating that she was tired of Asuka's behavior. This led to a match between Ripley and Asuka being scheduled for later that night, but before that, Sky asked Ripley to call off the match, which Ripley declined, and stated that Sky should be careful with Asuka, which infuriated Sky. Later, Ripley defeated Asuka. Following the match, Asuka spat mist on Ripley before Sky made the save. However, Asuka performed a spinning backfist on Sky, betraying her. After that, Asuka and a conflicted Sane attacked Sky and Ripley. On the following episode, Ripley called out The Kabuki Warriors, with Sky appearing instead. Sky then stated that Ripley was right about Asuka and Sane, but stated they were family and she still loved them. The Kabuki Warriors then appeared on the titantron, and Asuka said that she would forgive Sky if she apologized to her. Sky then left, only for the Kabuki Warriors to attack Ripley, prompting Sky to intervene. Asuka then spat mist on Sky before continuing the attack on Ripley. Later that night, Sane tried to convince Sky to apologize to Asuka, which Sky refused and told Sane to leave her alone. Sky subsequently revealed to Ripley that, after speaking with Raw General Manager Adam Pearce, she and Ripley, in the latter's home country of Australia, would face The Kabuki Warriors in a tag team match at Crown Jewel.

Since early 2025, Roman Reigns was in a rivalry against longtime rival Seth Rollins, who subsequently allied with Paul Heyman at WrestleMania 41, with Heyman betraying Reigns. They subsequently would ally themselves with Bron Breakker and Bronson Reed, forming The Vision. At Night 1 of SummerSlam, Reigns and his cousin Jey Uso defeated Reed and Breakker in a tag team match, and a month later at Clash in Paris, Reigns defeated Reed, however, he was brutally attacked by Breakker and Reed afterwards, taking Reigns out on a stretcher. Almost a month later on the September 29 episode of Raw, Reigns returned, helping The Usos (Jey and Jimmy Uso) defeat Breakker and Reed in a tornado tag team match. On the following episode, Reigns was interrupted by Reed and Heyman. Reigns then challenged Reed to fight him at that moment, but Heyman stopped Reed from doing so. Heyman then challenged Reigns to face Reed in an Australian Street Fight at Crown Jewel, in Reed's home country of Australia, which Reigns accepted.