7 Early DISASTERS From WWE In Saudi Arabia

8. Honorable Mention: Cain Today, Gone Tomorrow (Crown Jewel, 2019)

It cannot be overstated how godawful late 2010s WWE truly was. The first few WWE Saudi PLEs exemplified the haphazard, gimmicky and borderline desperate nature of the booking during that time.

Witness Cain Velasquez, the man who defeated Brock Lesnar for the UFC Heavyweight Championship in 2010, arriving in WWE in late 2019 to rescue Rey Mysterio and his then-non-wrestling son Dominik from The Beast. Despite having never wrestled in WWE, Cain was granted a WWE Championship match against Brock at Crown Jewel.

The match itself lasted less time than the entrances, with Lesnar shaking off a head kick and submitting Velasquez with a kimura in two minutes. Then, just to add insult to injury, Brock attacked Rey after the bell, dropped Cain with an F-5 on a chair, and finally retreated when Mysterio wielded a chair to chase him off.

This never went anywhere, as Velasquez didn’t appear for WWE again before being released during the pandemic-era roster cuts. It was a circus match designed to generate headlines, and nothing else – and it showed.