4 Ups & 6 Downs From WWE Crown Jewel 2024 (Results & Review)

Saudi show gives house show vibes; Cody Rhodes/Gunther shines; Bloodline drama has hits and misses.

by Scott Carlson

WWE put its finishing touches on its 12th Saudi PLE Saturday, with Crown Jewel 2024 beaming into viewers homes and giving fans a glimpse into what booking looks like when you have a contractually obligated show to put on for wealthy benefactors.

Crown Jewel was a middling show at best, with one excellent match, two good ones and the rest filling a range of decent to disappointing. It didn’t help that the two signature matches were Saudi-specific gimmick matches for opulent title belts created specifically for the show, and the championships will only live on in the kingdom and likely be forgotten when WWE gets stateside.

The Bloodline Civil War six-man tag was fraught with problems, but they did execute one aspect of it very well. Diehard fans of this never-ending saga likely found nothing wrong with what they watched, and that’s fine and dandy, but others will have some gripes, including the house show nature of their match.

Overall, Crown Jewel felt a lot like some of the earlier Saudi shows: a ton of pyro, pomp and circumstance, huge stage and a ton of hype, but ultimately it felt like a lot of empty calories. There wasn’t a lot of nutritional value to this show. The United States Championship triple threat, for example, was decent enough, but it felt like a TV match rather than a PLE-worthy contest. There wasn’t anything bad about it, but nothing praiseworthy either.

Let’s get to it…

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Scott is a former journalist and longtime wrestling fan who was smart enough to abandon WCW during the Monday Night Wars the same time as the Radicalz. He fondly remembers watching WrestleMania III, IV, V and VI and Saturday Night's Main Event, came back to wrestling during the Attitude Era, and has been a consumer of sports entertainment since then. He's written for WhatCulture for more than a decade, establishing the Ups and Downs articles for WWE Raw and WWE PPVs/PLEs and composing pieces on a variety of topics.