WWE Crown Jewel 2024: Where Do We Go From Here?

Welcome to another edition of Wrestling Inc's latest regular column, where we look at the most recent WWE PLE or AEW PPV and ask the question: What happens now? We kicked off our maiden voyage last month with AEW WrestleDream, and we turn our attention now to WWE Crown Jewel 2024, trying to determine where WWE's storylines are headed as we approach Survivor Series in just three weeks.

There are several different aspects of Crown Jewel that demand analysis. With Sami Zayn making a messy re-entry into the Bloodline story in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, how will the vaunted Anoa'i-driven tale unfold as we presumably begin staking out sides for WarGames? What's next for Kevin Owens after he and former friend Randy Orton massacred one another in a chaotic brawl after their match never even started and was ruled a no contest? And what's next for WWE's numerous champions, many of whom find themselves at a crossroads (so to speak) as they return to the United States?

You've got questions, the WINC staff has answers. Crown Jewel is over — where do we go from here?

After years of conflict intensified by their time together, The Original Bloodline and Sami Zayn shared the ring at WWE Crown Jewel on the same side for the first time since 2023's Royal Rumble. It wasn't exactly a smooth reunion, or rather a reunion at all, as Zayn and Roman Reigns came to blows inadvertently allowing Solo Sikoa to escape. Before that, Reigns has suffered a pinfall defeat to Sikoa, putting the momentum squarely with The New Bloodline against the original ensemble. There is a lot of room for where this tale goes moving forward, and working on the educated assumption that Survivor Series: WarGames plays host to the namesake match between The Bloodline factions (and Sami Zayn) it seems inevitable that the plot going forward will largely orientate around the babyfaces patching things up. The Usos played their greatest hits in their first match together in over a year, and seemed largely cohesive.

The issues within the team came between Jey and Reigns, so there is a strong chance that their issues will be addressed going forward, with any hostility between Jey and Jimmy running parallel to the situation as it pertains to "The Original Tribal Chief." The proverbial elephant in the room will be how Zayn fits into this, as he managed to slight both sides in one fell swoop. He will need to answer to Sikoa, whom he betrayed in the act of saving Jey, but he will also need to answer to Reigns, whom he kicked just to compound their existing issues, but also Jimmy, whom he argued with extensively after Helluva Kick-gate before leaving. Then there is the question of how Jey feels towards proceedings, and if he is going to be the only one willing to bring him back into the fold – which would be a stark contrast to Zayn's initial recruitment into The Bloodline.

Not to mention the fact that Sikoa became one of only three men to pin Reigns since 2019 – a departing Baron Corbin, no less – alongside current WWE Champion Cody Rhodes and his older brother, "Main Event" Jey Uso. That technical victory is surely going to reinforce his claim as "New Tribal Chief," and you might also expect him to retreat from the conflict altogether, potentially reasoning that he has beaten his only claimant. Reigns is surely going to be out to right the wrong, but as the centerpiece of all these character arcs there is a lot he will need to address with everyone: Jey for their mid-match tensions, Zayn for kicking him in the face, and Sikoa for walking around with his ulufala. There are plenty of roads to be taken but the destination definitely appears to be inside a double steel cage on November 30, time will tell.

Written by Max Everett

Eight women locked up in Riyadh for the WWE Women's Tag Team Championships, and the result was nothing short of chaos. Bodies flew through the air and littered the floor, backs thudded against the canvas with reckless abandon, and by the time the smoke cleared, Bianca Belair and Jade Cargill came out of the Crown Jewel carnage as your WWE Women's Tag Team Champions for sixty-three days and counting.

So, with not one, not two, but three teams officially defeated by the tag team champions, where do we go from here? Who could possibly posit themselves to be Belair and Cargill's next challengers?

After tonight's match, Belair and Cargill have officially pinned every competitor they face in Saturday's Fatal Fourway: they defended their titles against Damage CTRL with a decisive victory on the October 14 episode of "WWE Raw," put up their titles in winning fashion against Meta Girls on the October 11 episode of "WWE SmackDown", and now have pinned Chelsea Green and Piper Niven. No other opponents stepped up to the champions following the segment, and with the next possible team of Candice LeRae and Indi Hartwell now out of the picture, where do the WWE Women's Tag Team Champions go from here? Who is next?

Some may say the red brand's team of Sonya Deville, Shayna Baszler, and Zoey Stark, known collectively as Pure Fusion Collective, would be the next logical step for the tag team champions, and on paper, it sounds like a compelling matchup. Deville and Belair have history during Deville's problematic time as a General Manager, and the tag champions have worked with both Baszler and Stark before they became integrated into Pure Fusion Collective. With only a lukewarm feud between Zelina Vega and Lyra Valkyria under their belts, however, some fans — myself included — have yet to be sold on Pure Fusion Collective. It's clear that Baszler and Stark have yet to improve since their last attempt at the tag titles — as such, a title feud between them on the worse side of pointless.

Besides Pure Fusion Collective, there is not a single team on the main roster that is established enough to hold serious water against Belair and Cargill. The team of Vega and Valkyria are hardly cohesive unit — and this goes for any of the other teams of mashed-together singles stars that WWE has on their roster — and the chances of them holding their own as a formidable threat to Belair and Cargill's reign is slim at best. It might be tempting to pull some challengers from "NXT," but WWE would be unwise to disturb the chemistry going on between Fatal Influence, Stephanie Vaquer and Giulia, and Roxanne Perez and Cora Jade.

Unless WWE signs a notable female tag team — and signs them stat — there are no viable options for Belair and Cargill's next opponents. With their inactivity, the WWE Women's Tag Team Championships are doomed to fade into obscurity, just mere hours after they seemed to be on a path back to glory.

Written by Angeline Phu

While The Bloodline is in the midst of its own civil war, hostilities have continued to boil over for the former anti-Bloodline contingent of WWE Champion Cody Rhodes, Randy Orton, and Kevin Owens as of late. WWE Crown Jewel saw Rhodes overcome Gunther to become the inaugural men's Crown Jewel Champion, whereas Orton and Owens were scheduled to battle one another in a grudge match.

However, Owens started a pre-match ambush with a steel chair, further assaulting officials in a brawl to cancel out the official contest before it ever got started. By the time their segment had ended, both Owens and Orton were left wiped out after the former put the latter through a table in the seating area of the venue. It's clear from the off that the hostilities between the former R-KO pairing will continue, with Orton himself pleading for the Crown Jewel bout to be booked so he could exact vengeance for Owens' earlier betrayal. So it's a safe bet to say they're going to continue their rivalry, the question is really whether Orton is written out for any period of time after the attack.

But now Rhodes has gotten past his Gunther challenge, he will now be free to re-enter the fold and exact the vengeance he wants after Owens attacked him in the first place. The issues between "KO" and "The Viper" stemmed from the former's betrayal of Rhodes, so it only makes sense for the WWE Champion to circle back to his former friend. The question as it pertains to Rhodes is how his alliance stands with Orton, especially after it was noticed how the 14-time WWE World Champion was eyeing up the title held by the "American Nightmare" during Friday's "WWE SmackDown." On the subject of Owens, Rhodes asked for Orton to leave something of him to get his hands on, to which Orton falsely predicted there'd be nothing left, and assured Rhodes that he'd figure something out when it came to his next opponent. However it unfolds in the immediate future, there is enough between each party to sustain the belief they will be in one another's orbit for the foreseeable future. "The Viper" has been clear in the fact that he wants to add to his championship resume, and Owens and Rhodes are already established title rivals.

Written by Max Everett

Crown Jewel saw several big things go down outside any title picture, from Solo Sikoa pinning Roman Reigns to Seth Rollins conquering Bronson Reed to Randy Orton getting destroyed by Kevin Owens, but one thing it didn't see was championship movement. While six of WWE's regular titles were technically present at the show, only two were defended and neither changed hands, and even the two inaugural Crown Jewel Championships got put in a museum and won't be defended for a year. Functionally, the champions going in are the same as the champions coming out, and we seem to be at an inflection point for most of them.

It seems fairly clear what's happening with the top two titles on "WWE SmackDown." After Kevin Owens' actions at Crown Jewel, it seems likely he will be the next to challenge Cody Rhodes for the Undisputed WWE Championship, while WWE Women's Champion Nia Jax has both an upcoming challenge from Naomi and the ever-present threat of Tiffany Stratton and her Money in the Bank briefcase to contend with. Those two are easy — which is something you can't say for LA Knight and the United States Championship. Having taken the title from Logan Paul and defended it against Santos Escobar, Ludwig Kaiser, Andrade, Carmelo Hayes, and now Andrade and Carmelo Hayes, the remaining options among singles wrestlers on the blue brand are uninspiring (Apollo Crews? Giovanni Vinci? The fading memory of Shinsuke Nakamura?). Beyond that, we're grabbing someone from the tag team division or maybe the Bloodline storyline, though I wouldn't think any of them will be challenging for titles of any kind until after Survivor Series. It's a fairly bleak place to be and one of the reasons some of us thought Knight was dropping the title at Crown Jewel and were disappointed when he didn't.

Written by Miles Schneiderman

As for the red brand, we know there's a four-way No. 1 contender's match coming up on "WWE Raw" involving Rollins, Damian Priest, Dominik Mysterio, and Sheamus, with the winner getting a shot at GUNTHER coming off his flash pin loss to Rhodes. Rollins probably makes the most sense in terms of signing a big-name title match for Survivor Series, but it's very possible his feud with Reed isn't over yet, and GUNTHER and Priest recently teased a renewal of their rivalry, so that option seems the most likely. WWE could also easily give a big win to Sheamus and score a rematch of his acclaimed Clash at the Castle 2022 match with GUNTHER, or go buck wild and find a way to let Mysterio win, which would be a completely different direction from GUNTHER's other world title feuds. There's also always the possibility that a different wrestler could find their way into this match by hook or by crook, and CM Punk has been talking about championship aspirations of late. It really is a blank slate; whoever wins the match on Monday's "Raw" will indicate which of many potential directions WWE has opted to go.

Similarly unclear is the situation surrounding Women's World Champion Liv Morgan, whose long-running feud with Rhea Ripley was reportedly set to continue at Crown Jewel via a singles match between Ripley and Morgan's enforcer, Raquel Rodriguez, while Morgan faced Jax in the women's Crown Jewel title match. However, with Ripley having seeming suffered a legitimate injury with no known time table for return, WWE creative might need to pivot. While the likes of Zelina Vega and Lyra Valkyria are available, the most likely option is probably IYO SKY, who could participate in tag matches with Morgan and Rodriguez alongside Kairi Sane and is basically the only other member of the "Raw" women's roster with championship pedigree. As a result, SKY would be the only viable replacement for Ripley if the plan was to take the belt off Morgan, which would presumably result in the belt being defended again with something resembling regularity. But if I'm being honest, WWE's solution to this problem will probably be to just not have Morgan defend the title again until Ripley is ready to come back.

Written by Miles Schneiderman