WWE announces two blockbuster matches for Crown Jewel event

Hours before the first half of the roster draft taking place on Friday Night SmackDown, WWE announced two big matches for Crown Jewel.

WWE rolled out the blue carpet for media and live-streamed from T-Mobile Arena announcing two marquee matches for WWE Crown Jewel taking place at King Fahd International Stadium in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia on Oct. 31. WWE Champion Brock Lesnar will be facing two-time UFC Heavyweight Champion Cain Velasquez, and WWE Superstar Braun Strowman will square off against the undefeated lineal Heavyweight Champion, boxer Tyson Fury.

Executive Vice President of Talent, Live Events and Creative, Paul “Triple H” Levesque started the presentation by running down the tale of the tape and hyping each competitors’ stats in a way that made it have a big-fight feel.

From there, each of the four competitors, Strowman, Fury, Velasquez and Lesnar, spoke on their upcoming matches and their respective opponents. The promos felt natural and lent themselves to the big-fight feel being presented, complete with stare downs.

After the press conference media row had an opportunity to speak with those involved. Each of them they were energized about the opportunity. Strowman said he was looking forward to facing an opponent on equal size with him for once. Then he had a playful moment where he discussed which designer labels he was wearing.

Fury’s energy and natural charisma are tailor-made for the character-driven world of sports entertainment. He discussed the difference in his training style from the world of boxing to the WWE ring and he was ready for the challenge. It seems likely we’ll be seeing more from Fury than just a one-off match. Rey Mysterio Jr., who was also in attendance to accompany Velasquez, said it was a huge honor to have Velasquez come in to defend the honor of Mysterio and his son Dominick. He also confirmed he’d be in Velasquez’s corner come October 31.

Triple H had a lot to say about the impact these types of matches would have on sports entertainment as a whole. With the inclusion of Fury, Velasquez and the year prior with Ronda Rousey, does this mean WWE was seeking other sports stars or if they had been approached by anyone in particular? Triple H responded, saying:

"When you can find an an elite-level athlete that has the desire to entertain, the desire to be larger than life, then it doesn’t matter to us where they come from. We have athletes from every type of sport whether it’s Olympics, to soccer, to rugby, like I said that larger-than-life-personality connects with being a high-level athlete. You can have a person come in and do one thing with us and then go back to their regular work but they really have to be passionate about it to make it good."

WWE Crown Jewel will also feature Team Hulk Hogan (Seth Rollins, Rusev) vs. Team Ric Flair (Randy Orton, King Corbin) as the two WWE Hall of Famers will coach a hand-picked team of five Superstars for a five-on-five tag team match. Currently Team Hogan has WWE Universal Champion Seth Rollins and the returning Rusev while Team Flair has veteran Randy Orton and the newly-crowned King Corbin.

WWE Crown Jewel takes place October 31 at 8pm AST/1pm ET exclusively on the WWE Network.