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

WWE Championship Match

AJ Styles (c) vs. Samoa Joe

What we learned: We learned here that with this victory, AJ Styles is essentially now assured of being WWE Champion for a full year. Nov. 7 will be 365 days that Styles has held the biggest prize in the game, even if it wasn’t in the main event yet again, which has been a travesty all year long. I highly doubt Styles would have another title match on Tuesday night.

As for the match, this was another one that was just a little too short. That spot early on with Samoa Joe diving through the ropes and knocking Styles into the announce table was brutally good though. Wow. These two know each other so well and know exactly how to handle one another and it played out nicely with the time that they got. I was just hoping for a little more. Don’t get me wrong, I thoroughly enjoyed what they did out there. They went back and forth and each took some punishment and hit some nice spots, but it was another abrupt ending. I’m sitting here enjoying the match and looking forward to another 10 minutes, and then it was just over.

What’s next: As I’m sure it was supposed to be a while ago, this now has to be the end for AJ Styles vs. Samoa Joe for a little bit. Joe stepped in for Daniel Bryan, who didn’t want to make the trip to Crown Jewel, so at least we did get a decent match for the WWE Championship but he’s out of chances. Styles is now all set to go at Survivor Series against Brock Lesnar (spoiler alert) in a WWE Champion vs. Universal Champion match, a rematch from a year ago. From there, a new contender will need to emerge.