With Roman Reigns returning to WWE on this week’s Smackdown, it’s certain that he will participate in the latest upcoming Crown Jewel 2023 show. It’s the second last WWE premium live event for this year which will mark yet another stadium show from Saudi Arabia. This occasion certainly needs to produce some bigger names onboard to sell things out in such a huge capacity.
This is the reason why WWE was reportedly planning to host a huge match in the main event scene of Crown Jewel 2023 but plans have since been changed. The Wrestling Observer previously reported that WWE might be going in the direction of hosting Roman Reigns vs. John Cena III for the upcoming Saudi event with the Undisputed WWE Universal Title hanging in the balance.
With Cena’s time being limited to the WWE programming, this match at Crown Jewel 2023 was also supposed to wrap up his ongoing stint in the company. In an update, the same source has mentioned that the matchup between the two franchise players of the WWE is not on the card anymore despite Paul Heyman initiating the storyline by mentioning Cena as “the second greatest of all time,” next to Reigns.
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However, John Cena is still reportedly planning to have a visit to Saudi Arabia to be a part of Crown Jewel 2023 in early November. He previously pulled out of the same event in the kingdom in 2018 due to some major public issues. But Cena is seen in a video posted on social media by Riyadh Season which also now advertises him for multiple events around the city.
With Cena transitioning to a Hollywood megastar, the assumption was that his visit to Saudi Arabia to compete in a match would “be looked at negatively in Hollywood.” He was likely planned for the World Cup tournament in a match against Rey Mysterio which never happened. Now that Hollywood is dealing with a strike, he perhaps won’t have any problems going back to Saudi.
While there’s no confirmation, Roman Reigns is still expected to feature in the main event of Crown Jewel 2023. AJ Styles was originally touted to be his opponent before Cena entered the mix. Now that Cena isn’t taking on Reigns, we guess AJ will return to Smackdown to confirm his match against Reigns.
