WWE Crown Jewel 2018 review: What we learned, takeaways, future projections

What we learned, what we took away and what the future holds for the superstars of RAW and SmackDown Live following Friday’s WWE Crown Jewel pay-per-view.

Despite plenty of controversy surrounding the event, WWE Crown Jewel went on as scheduled on Friday in Saudi Arabia. This is the second big event as part of a 10-year deal with the Saudi General Sports Authority, and WWE has certainly taken a lot of heat for moving forward with this show following the death of journalist Jamal Khashoggi last month.

And speaking of controversy, Crown Jewel kicked off with the first appearance of WWE Hall of Famer Hulk Hogan in more than three years. Hogan was named the official host of the event just a few days back and got a great response upon entering King Saud University Stadium.

He didn’t talk very long, but it was long enough to run through his chatter about the power of Hulkamania, which of course was followed by cupping the ear to the crowd and a few poses.

Crown Jewel still seems like the wrong time to bring back the Hulkster, especially if that’s all he was going to do, but I suppose if people were going to be upset with the event anyway, Vince just decided to pile it on. There are no further appearances from Hogan that I’m aware of, but now that he’s officially back in WWE, I’m sure we’ll see him pop up from time to time.

We got a fun little match on the kickoff show with Shinsuke Nakamura retaining his United States Championship against Rusev before getting to the main card, which included two world title matches. Braun Strowman and Brock Lesnar battled it out for the WWE Universal Championship and AJ Styles and Samoa Joe renewed their rivalry with the WWE Championship on the line. The SmackDown Tag Team Championship titles were also on the line as The Bar took on The New Day and the title of “Best in the World” was also decided in an eight-man tournament. And let’s not forget about the in-ring return of Shawn Michaels, who teamed up with Triple H to wage war with The Undertaker and Kane.

So let’s take a look at how WWE Crown Jewel unfolded with a few highlights and takeaways and how things will progress from here.