Crown Jewel (2022)

The 2022 Crown Jewel is the upcoming fourth Crown Jewel professional wrestling pay-per-view and livestreaming event produced by WWE. It will be held for wrestlers from the promotion's Raw and SmackDown brand divisions. The event will take place on Saturday, November 5, 2022, at Mrsool Park in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia-this will be the second Crown Jewel to be held at this venue after the inaugural 2018 event, which was held there when it was previously referred to as King Saud University Stadium; the stadium changed its name to Mrsool Park in 2020. It will be the eighth event that WWE will hold in Saudi Arabia under a 10-year partnership in support of Saudi Vision 2030.

Production

Background

In early 2018, the American professional wrestling promotion WWE began a 10-year strategic multiplatform partnership with the 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 as one of the recurring events in this partnership to be held in Riyadh, the capital of Saudi Arabia. +more Announced on May 23, 2022, the 2022 event will be the fourth event in the Crown Jewel chronology and the eighth event overall for the Saudi Arabian partnership. The event will take place on Saturday, November 5, 2022, at Mrsool Park-this marks the second Crown Jewel to take place at this venue after the inaugural 2018 event, which was held there when it was previously referred to as King Saud University Stadium; the stadium changed its name to Mrsool Park in 2020. The event will air on pay-per-view worldwide and the livestreaming services Peacock in the United States and the WWE Network in international markets and will feature wrestlers from the Raw and SmackDown brands.

Storylines

The event will include matches that result from scripted storylines, where wrestlers portray heroes, villains, or less distinguishable characters in scripted events that build tension and culminate in a wrestling match or series of matches. Results are predetermined by WWE's writers on the Raw and SmackDown brands, while storylines are produced on WWE's weekly television shows, Monday Night Raw and Friday Night SmackDown.

After Roman Reigns appeared on Logan Paul's podcast Impaulsive, the social media influencer then trash-talked Reigns after the latter left the set. This led to a social media exchange, resulting in Paul appearing on the September 16 episode of SmackDown where he confronted The Bloodline to invite Reigns to a press conference in Las Vegas the following day. +more At the conference, WWE executive Triple H announced that Reigns would defend the Undisputed WWE Universal Championship against Paul in the main event of Crown Jewel, marking only Paul's third match in WWE.

On the October 10 episode of Raw, The Judgment Day (Finn Bálor, Damian Priest, Dominik Mysterio, and Rhea Ripley) called out AJ Styles to join their stable, as Styles and Bálor used to be teammates in the Bullet Club in New Japan Pro-Wrestling. Styles came out to seemingly accept the offer, however, he rejected the offer and introduced the returning Luke Gallows and Karl Anderson as backup, making their return to WWE after both were released in April 2020, thus reforming +moreC. _(professional_wrestling)'>The O. C. . A brawl then ensued between the two teams. The following week, The Judgment Day confronted The O. C. and challenged them to a six-man tag team match at Crown Jewel, which the latter accepted.

On the October 10 episode of Raw, Bobby Lashley listed off the names of previous wrestlers he had defeated, which included Brock Lesnar, who he faced only once and defeated at the Royal Rumble in January. Lesnar, in his first appearance since SummerSlam in July, then made a surprise return and attacked Lashley. +more This ultimately cost Lashley his United States Championship in a title defense that occurred right after the confrontation. Following this, in a backstage segment, Lashley challenged Lesnar to face him on the following week's episode. The following week, the two then brawled which ended after Lashley put Lesnar through the commentators table. Later that night, a match between the two was announced for Crown Jewel.

At Extreme Rules, Karrion Kross defeated Drew McIntyre in a Strap match after Kross' wife, Scarlett, incapacitated McIntyre with pepper spray. On the following episode of SmackDown, Kross was scheduled to compete in a fatal four-way match to determine the number one contender for the Intercontinental Championship. +more However, before SmackDown went on air, Kross was involved in a car accident (kayfabe) and was attacked by McIntyre while receiving help, rendering him unable to compete. The following week, McIntyre announced that he would be facing Kross in a Steel Cage match at Crown Jewel.

During Braun Strowman's match on the October 14 episode of SmackDown, Omos and his manager MVP of the Raw brand appeared in the crowd. After Strowman won the match, MVP explained that they took issue with Strowman's claim of calling himself the "Monster of all Monsters" and claimed that Strowman would look normal sized if he stood next to Omos. +more The following week, Strowman called out Omos to confront him. MVP came out instead and Strowman stated that he wanted to challenge Omos at Crown Jewel; MVP then accepted on his behalf, however, Omos then came out and towered over Strowman before shoving him out of the ring. The match was officially confirmed on the October 24 episode of Raw.

At Extreme Rules, Bianca Belair defeated Bayley in a Ladder match to retain the Raw Women's Championship. On the October 24 episode of Raw, Bayley defeated Belair in a non-title match thanks to a distraction by +moreS. H. '>Nikki A. S. H. , who returned to her previous persona of Nikki Cross. Due to this, Bayley earned another title match against Belair, which was scheduled for Crown Jewel and stipulated as a Last Woman Standing match.

On the October 14 episode of SmackDown, Sheamus and Solo Sikoa competed in a fatal four-way match to earn an opportunity at the Intercontinental Championship. During the match, The Bloodline (Sami Zayn and Jey Uso) interferred on Sikoa's behalf. +more To counter this, The Brawling Brutes (Ridge Holland and Butch) also came out to defend their stablemate, Sheamus, and a brawl broke out between the two teams. The following week, The Bloodline attacked and injured Sheamus. After defeating Zayn and Sikoa on the October 28 episode, Holland and Butch earned a match against The Usos (Jey Uso and Jimmy Uso) for the Undisputed WWE Tag Team Championship at Crown Jewel.

After being absent for a few weeks due to an attack by Damage CTRL (Bayley, Dakota Kai, and Iyo Sky), Alexa Bliss and Asuka made their return on the October 31 episode of Raw. That night, they challenged Sky and Kai to a match for the WWE Women's Tag Team Championship and ultimately defeated them to win the title. +more The next day, a championship rematch was scheduled for Crown Jewel.

Iranian attack concerns

On November 1, 2022, The Wall Street Journal reported that Saudi Arabia may be subject to a targeted attack by Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps amid the Mahsa Amini protests simultaneously taking place. The article stated that the attacks were planned for "targets in the kingdom". +more This brought concern regarding Crown Jewel that upcoming weekend. PWInsider reported that WWE would be going forward with the event and that the company had security protocols and emergency contingencies in place if something were to happen, but were hopeful that there would be no issues. On November 2, Iran denied that they were planning any attack.

Matches

Notes