A new women’s world champion, a new King of the Ring, a new Queen of the Ring, and so much more from WWE’s latest trip to Saudi Arabia.
WWE hit the Jeddah Super Dome in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia today (Sat., May 25, 2024) for its King & Queen of the Ring premium live event and while there weren’t any surprises expected, it was still a card worth getting eyes on.
Let’s dive in.
We pretty much knew going into this event how the main event was going to end. There was just no way in hell Logan Paul was going to defeat Cody Rhodes to win the WWE championship in Saudi Arabia considering everything that has happened over the past couple years.
Just no chance in hell.
But that didn’t mean we wouldn’t get a good story out of what would undoubtedly be a good match. Indeed, Paul seems allergic to having bad matches in pro wrestling, and he had yet another good one here.
They worked hard to actually create some doubt in the outcome, with Paul actually using the brass knuckles like he claimed he wouldn’t — because of course he would — and then doing a ref bump late in the match, giving Rhodes the visual pin but Paul coming to and delivering a low blow while the ref was down.
That led to the brass knuckles coming out once more, but the guest ring announcer actually held Paul back and that was the opening Rhodes used to finish the job. I’m not entirely sure how I feel about a guest ring announcer impacting the finish so much, even if it is for a heel like Paul in a match he was never going to win anyway.
It was never going to be a great idea to simply beat Paul clean in the middle of the ring, and I think they did a fantastic job of putting him over along the way anyhow. He got into it with Michael Cole at ringside at one point but it wasn’t long after that Cole was begrudgingly admitting to Paul being incredibly good at this and worthy of being in there with Rhodes.
For his part, I’ll say Cody didn’t really deliver on the promises he was making going in but I’m not sure it’s going to matter for him either way. That guy looks bulletproof right now and this match was never going to change that. It could only add to the legend, no matter how they got to the outcome.
Fittingly enough, Peacock ran an ad for LA Knight right after the conclusion of the main event. Hey, remember that staredown he had with Paul on SmackDown recently?
They did well enough that I’m already looking forward to that despite this loss.
YEAH!
During the Countdown show, Liv Morgan was interviewed and said the usual about winning the title from Becky Lynch and riding on through her revenge tour. I bring this up only because Dominik Mysterio showed up to say he flew all the way to Jeddah just to make sure she doesn’t get her hands on Mami’s world championship.
Intrigue!
Naturally, then, nearly the entirety of the match felt like a formality, a simple waiting game for the Dirty one to show up to influence the match. He did just that, too, throwing a chair into the ring and demanding Lynch use it. She refused, of course.
You’d already know where this is going even if you didn’t follow along with the show as it happened.
Morgan took advantage, hitting Oblivion onto the chair and following up with one more to steal the championship and, as commentary put it, complete her revenge tour. She took out Rhea Ripley, and now she’s taken out Lynch to win the title with the help — intentional or otherwise — of Ripley’s man.
That’s what will be interesting going forward. There has been quite a bit of talk among fans that, hey, maybe Morgan steals Dom away too. This was played in such a way that if they wanted to go that direction they absolutely could.
I don’t know how I would feel about a split there, but The Judgment Day has been dealing with it from all sides and there could be a fun story to tell with Dom going his own way. Or perhaps Liv joins up in Rhea’s place, even.
Either way, this should inject some life into the women’s world title scene now that Lynch isn’t simply a holdover champion and can actually take some time off for herself now.
Michael Cole said Randy Orton vs. GUNTHER had a “big fight feel” and you know what? He was right.
One thing I miss about covering UFC events is when a big fight would take place, there was just a certain nervous energy you would get as the two fighters stood across from each other in the cage, Bruce Buffer adding to the moment with his wild introductions. You don’t get that very often in WWE, what with how many matches there are on a weekly basis.
But sometimes you get a wrestler like GUNTHER standing across from an industry stalwart like Orton in front of a crowd who can’t keep quiet with some major stakes and that feeling comes rushing right back.
That’s what we got here. What I liked is the fact that they took that big fight feel and worked nice and slow off the start to let it build even more throughout the match. GUNTHER’s chops left Orton’s chest blistered and bruised. He managed to survive two RKOs, the second of which led to the finish.
He attacked Randy’s bad knee to get out of the pinfall attempt, and then snagged his arms to roll him up — although his shoulders weren’t all the way down, but hey — to score the surprise victory.
This was a clear way to put GUNTHER over while also protecting Orton, because it seems clear and obvious they still want to go to a future match with Cody Rhodes. Either way, this makes for an exciting elevation for the former longtime Intercontinental champion, who could very well have a world title run in his future that rivals that record breaking reign.
I’m ready for it.
When WWE opened the evening with Becky Lynch losing the women’s world championship to Liv Morgan, it instantly made me think it was terrible news for Lyra Valkyria’s chances in the Queen of the Ring tournament final.
The idea of running Valkyria vs. Lynch in a repeat of their feud in NXT made sense to me, certainly more sense than running Valkyria vs. Morgan, which simply doesn’t feel like a SummerSlam worthy showcase. Lyra is still establishing herself on the main roster and Lynch is the level of star that she can help create a new one on a stage like that.
There are no such issues with crowning Nia Jax, which is exactly what WWE ended up doing.
The match was good for what it was, with Valkyria coming up short but leaving plenty of room for improvement moving forward. Jax, meanwhile, has already been building up a feud with Bayley over the women’s championship and that absolutely is the kind of match they can run comfortably at a big event in Cleveland.
To her credit, Jax, the subject of quite a bit of criticism in her last run with WWE, has been fantastic since her return. She deserves every bit of this run she’s been on throughout 2024.
“Stick with the plan.”
That’s what Chad Gable told Otis as he was making his way into the ring for the Intercontinental championship triple threat match against Bronson Reed and the champ going in, Sami Zayn, who was, unsurprisingly, as over as could be in Saudi Arabia. They sang his song during the match, after all.
The match was a lot of fun, a chaotic battle that featured some really fun spots, like Gable putting the Ankle Lock on Reed only for Zayn to run up and put one on Gable only for Reed to run up on Zayn and eat a Blue Thunder Bomb. Or, later, Gable managing to hit a double stacked German suplex on both Reed and Zayn. Think of the size differences here.
Insanity.
The plan Gable mentioned was for Otis to do his bidding, what with it being a triple threat and there being no disqualifications. It was another opportunity for Otis to prove himself — or grow a spine. He was much more conflicted this time around, even stopping short of actually throwing a punch at the champion.
Gable smacked him around for failing to deliver, so Otis attacked, only for Zayn to duck and Gable to be taken down on the outside. Back in the ring, Zayn hit Reed with the Helluva Kick and that was enough to end it.
This was a really fun match, one that gave Zayn a solid win in front of an adoring crowd while also giving us plenty of advancement in the Alpha Academy story.
I can’t wait for Otis to finally get good and fed up with the abuse and take that son of a son of a Gable down.
WWE really did a two hour Countdown show for this. There was just enough there to need to pay attention to it, too, which is a bit annoying considering what these shows usually are. There was even a women’s tag team title match.
Said match, Jade Cargill & Bianca Belair defending against Indi Hartwell & Candice LeRaw, was set up just the day before on Friday Night SmackDown, making clear what the outcome was going to be before we ever got to it. But this is a time we can overlook something like that because this meant getting four more women onto the card — five including the referee — on a Saudi Arabia show.
That’s still worth quite a bit.
The match itself was solid if unspectacular, though I did like that the babyfaces wore hot pink while the heels wore black. The champions retained with a clean pinfall victory, using a new tandem finish that commentary was sure to point out.
They’re adding tricks to their bag, and becoming even more dangerous in doing so. If nothing else, it makes these two feel even more like a legitimate team, which should only help the entirety of the division.
I enjoyed this show.
Grade: B+
Your turn.
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