WWE Moves Crown Jewel To Much Smaller Venue In Saudi Arabia

TheSportster

By Josh Coulson

Published Oct 8, 2018

WWE announced over the weekend that Crown Jewel will now take place in a much smaller venue, cutting the potential attendance by almost two thirds.

WWE's Crown Jewel event in Saudi Arabia will now take place at the King Saud University Stadium, a venue almost a third of the size of where it was slated to happen.

On November 2, 2018, WWE will head to Saudi Arabia for the second time this year. The event has been named Crown Jewel, and we already know two of the matches that will be taking place. Roman Reigns will defend his Universal Title against Brock Lesnar and Braun Strowman, and Daniel Bryan will get his shot at AJ Styles' WWE Championship.

As touched upon above, WWE has already paid Saudi Arabia visit for a big show once this year, the Greatest Royal Rumble. Around 70,000 Middle Eastern fans packed the King Fahd International Stadium for the show. Even though most watching the event on the WWE Network didn't think it was that great, those watching in person probably couldn't quite believe what they were seeing. A WWE show of that magnitude right on their doorstep.

That's why the news that the venue for Crown Jewel has been significantly downgraded comes as quite a surprise. In a press release issued by WWE over the weekend, it was revealed that the November 2 show will now take place at the much smaller King Saud University Stadium. The new venue has a capacity of 25,000 whereas the King Fahd International Stadium can hold 68,000+.

The King Saud University Stadium is still in the same city, Riyadh, but the downgrade is not a good sign. Ringside News has since reported that the venue change is due to construction work needing to take place at the King Fahd Stadium at that time. Other events happening there around that time have also apparently been moved, postponed, or canceled.

On the one hand, the venue change raises a lot of issues and questions. Surely tickets have already been sold at this point, which means many fans might have to be refunded and turned away. Perhaps that is not the case though, and one entity that will not care about the downgrade is WWE. Vince McMahon and his Superstars have already been paid handsomely for the show, so the size of the crowd doesn't make much difference to them.

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