WWE Crown Jewel 2024: Biggest Winners And Losers

Another Crown Jewel has come and gone. As is the case with sports entertainment, there were plenty of literal winners and losers, but the following piece will not be focused on them. Instead, this is focused on who came out of Saturday's show looking like...well...a Crown Jewel, and who did not.

This will not be a recap on "what happened" at the event, that is what our fastidious results page is for. For more outright editorial, the staff who watched the show put together a list of things they loved and hated. Now it is time to talk about who can pat themselves on the back for a job well done, and who must hang their head in shame, with a long, hard road to redemption in front of them.

Enough prologue, it's time to dig into the real winners and losers from WWE's latest co-production with the Saudi Arabian General Entertainment Authority.

The journey to Saudi Arabia is roughly 12-24 hours depending on the flight itinerary. No matter the accommodation, it is a lengthy, exhaustive journey even in modern-day, and then on top of that WWE Superstars then have to wrestle a full match on top of that in the crushing heat of the Arabian desert. Unless you're Randy Orton or Kevin Owens.

Orton and Owens made the lengthy journey to Riyadh, soaked up the accommodations, and then proceeded to screw around with weapons for a few minutes. Their match devolved into a walk and brawl, and outside of a huge leap by Owens to put Orton through a table, the two men essentially got to work a brawling segment on an international PLE. No one won. No one lost. They left the show with no reputational damage and more heat than they came in with. If that's not working smarter, not harder, then I don't know what is.

The Saudi Arabian PLEs are in a weird limbo where they mostly matter but they also still feel like a universe with themselves, sometimes due to the booking and sometimes due to the geo-political sentiments of the moment, which can sometimes render the efforts of a great match meaningless. Owens and Orton circumvented the gossamer nature of Saudi Arabian booking by kicking the can down the road and giving everyone just enough to get out of there with their dignity.

The World Heavyweight Championship has created an interesting conundrum, where WWE has one guy who is at all times presented as "The Guy" without ever getting any opportunity to actually be "The Guy." It worked for Seth Rollins, whose knee was too banged up for him to ever truly usurp Roman Reigns's place as "The Guy." It worked for Damian Priest, who played an admirable second-fiddle to Cody Rhodes, following Cody's win over Roman Reigns, carrying the title much like he carried any of WWE's midcard titles. Gunther is a different beast altogether.

Gunther seems like someone WWE has a lot of faith in. After lengthy reigns as WWE NXT UK Champion and Intercontinental Champion, "The Ring General's" ascension to World Champion is everything a WWE main eventer should be on paper, and yet he doesn't really main event. Crown Jewel felt like a chance for WWE to give Gunther something to hold over Rhodes, a way to balance the scales between the two world champions, and yet not only did Cody beat Gunther, he made Gunther look like an absolute idiot.

Maybe Gunther just got cocky, assured that his Rear Naked Choke could end the match, as long as he had in tightly and long enough, but his blunder meant that as World Heavyweight Champion, he was also the first major star that Cody Rhodes beat without needing significant help from a rogue Samoan or a WWE Hall of Famer.

LA Knight is immensely lucky that things aren't allowed to happen in WWE outside of WrestleMania or SummerSlam. Carmelo Hayes and Andrade are killing each other in ways that would normally mean a run with either the United States or Intercontinental Title. Instead, LA Knight swooped in to get the pinfall, stretching his reign out until at least Survivor Series, while Andrade and Hayes will go back to competing for who can tear their ACL first on "SmackDown." 

Knight was anointed by Slim Jim in 2023 and it has been up, up, up for the United States Champion ever since. It is just a fact of WWE's current business model that the corporate money behind Knight can't trump even the best in-ring work. Carmelo Hayes and Andrade are two of the top stars in NXT's history, in-ring workers who are unparalleled and clicking on the main roster with unmatched chemistry. It is very possible that whichever of them is healthiest by WrestleMania will be the next WWE United States Champion, but tomorrow is a long time and April is even longer, so sit back and get used to LA Knight doing donuts on their lawns in his kickass Slim Jim car.

Drums decay when played. The act of pounding on a drum weakens it, but it's also just how a drum is played, so you have to weaken it until it breaks and then get a new one. Being a big man like Bronson Reed in professional wrestling is similar

It must kinda suck to be a big man in professional wrestling these days. Destroying a top star like Seth Rollins, while being the size that Bronson Reed is, seems like it would've led to some kind of world title consideration, if not an outright reign. Instead, it just means that he gets to get his head smashed in so that it can feel like something happened at these glorified live events. 

Rollins bested Reed on Saturday, revenge for Reed crushing Rollins's ribs some time back. Reed will now probably fall away until the Royal Rumble, where he'll be treated as a credible threat in the match, possibly even eliminating a major contender and spinning off into a feud where said contender gets revenge on their way back to prominence. Where once big men like Reed were treated as "The Eighth Wonder of the World," now he is but the world's largest stepping stone.

There wasn't a wrong note played, but it does feel like WWE isn't getting as much out of the drum they're beating as they possibly could. Bronson Reed, like any drum, will someday be at the point where he can be pounded no more, and WWE should probably make sure there is some significance to the tune they're playing with him, the story they're telling.