Cody Rhodes vs. Gunther - WWE Crown Jewel 2024

The 2024 Crown Jewel is an upcoming professional wrestling event produced by the American company WWE. It will be the sixth Crown Jewel and will take place on Saturday, November 2, 2024, at the Mohammed Abdo Arena in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. The event will air via pay-per-view (PPV) and livestreaming and will be 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 will be the 12th event that WWE will hold in Saudi Arabia under a 10-year partnership in support of Saudi Vision 2030.
#crownjewel #wwe
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.[1][2] 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. 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.[3] The event will air on pay-per-view worldwide and will be available to livestream on Peacock in the United States and the WWE Network in most international markets, and it will feature wrestlers from the Raw and SmackDown brand divisions.[4] This will be the final Crown Jewel to air live on the standalone WWE Network, as it will cease operations in its available markets when Netflix gains the rights in January 2025.[5] The official theme song of the event will be "Arabi" by Future, Mohamed Ramadan, and Massari.

Storylines
The event will include matches that result from scripted storylines. Results are predetermined by WWE's writers on the Raw and SmackDown brands,[6][7] while storylines are produced on WWE's weekly television shows, Monday Night Raw and Friday Night SmackDown.[8]

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 Crown Jewel Champion and Women's Crown Jewel Champion. He also announced that this would be an annual match for Crown Jewel.[9] 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.[10]

After Bad Blood went off the air, fans captured video footage of Kevin Owens attacking Cody Rhodes as he was entering his bus, presumably 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.[15] Randy Orton, a mutual friend of both Owens and Rhodes (who is also Orton's Legacy teammate), 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.[16] 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.[17]
Roman Reigns and The Usos (Jey Uso and Jimmy Uso) vs. The Bloodline (Solo Sikoa, Jacob Fatu, and Tama Tonga) (with Tonga Loa) Six-man tag team match[23]
2 Jade Cargill and Bianca Belair (c) vs. Damage CTRL (Kairi Sane and Iyo Sky) vs. Meta-Four (Lash Legend and Jakara Jackson) vs. Chelsea Green and Piper Niven Fatal four-way tag team match for the WWE Women's Tag Team Championship[24]
3 Seth "Freakin" Rollins vs. Bronson Reed Singles match[25]
4 Liv Morgan (Raw's Women's World Champion) vs. Nia Jax (SmackDown's WWE Women's Champion) Singles match for the inaugural WWE Women's Crown Jewel Championship[26]
5 Randy Orton vs. Kevin Owens Singles match[27]
6 LA Knight (c) vs. Andrade vs. Carmelo Hayes Triple threat match for the WWE United States Championship[28]
7 Gunther (Raw's World Heavyweight Champion) vs. Cody Rhodes (SmackDown's Undisputed WWE Champion) Singles match for the inaugural WWE Crown Jewel Championship[29]
(c) – the champion(s) heading into the match
*Card subject to change
References