WWE holds women’s match in Saudi Arabia
Crown Jewel thoughts
WWE presented Crown Jewel on the WWE Network Thursday afternoon, and big news took place.
It is rare that an undercard match makes bigger news than a title change, but that is what happened.
Natalya defeated Lacey Evans by submission, and while that might not mean anything to you right away, it was the first time women took part in a combat-style match in Saudi Arabian history.
How big of a deal was it?
Numerous news outlets made note of it.
And not only that, but if you really want to know what the match means, all one has to do go back and watch the match to see how emotional it was for both women.
Natalya was in tears after her introduction and both women wept openly in the ring post-match.
For those who don鈥檛 know, Saudi Arabia treats its women as being less than men, so the fact that women were showcased is truly history in the making.
Natalya and Evans had to alter their wrestling gear so the country would approve the match taking place, but for WWE to pull off a women蘑菇视频 match in Saudi Arabia, it truly is a big deal.
Also on the card, Brock Lesnar forced Cain Velasquez to tap out a little more than two minutes into their WWE championship match.
Bray Wyatt defeated Seth Rollins to win the Universal title, and 鈥淭he Fiend鈥� will speak tonight on Smackdown.
In the other special attraction match, undefeated lineal heavyweight boxing champion Tyson Fury defeated Braun Strowman by count out.
WWE蘑菇视频 crazy travel schedule
Last weekend, I spoke to a good friend who蘑菇视频 a WWE production member.
Because of the Saudi Arabian show, the production crew flew out from St. Louis after Raw to head to Saudi Arabia, as did most of the talent.
That flight is almost 7,300 miles.
Then after the show over there Thursday afternoon, the crew hopped right back on a plane to fly to Buffalo for tonight蘑菇视频 Smackdown.
That flight is over 18 hours long and is more than 6,600 miles.
In a matter of four days, they will be on flights for longer than 36 hours, including layovers, and for more than 14,000 miles.
Smackdown numbers plummet
In last week蘑菇视频 column, we looked at how Smackdown would air on FS1 due to the World Series taking place on Fox and how the viewership would suffer because of it.
Well, suffer it did as the show only drew 888,000 viewers.
That is down from the 2.4 million viewers the week prior and the 3.888 million viewers for the Fox debut show on Oct. 4.
In fact, there were three million less people who watched last week than the first show.
WWE announces 3rd quarter numbers
Thursday morning, WWE announced that revenues were down to $186.3 million compared to $188.4 during the same quarter a year ago.
This caused WWE蘑菇视频 stock to drop to $56.11 a share, down $10.33 from earlier in the day.
NXT a part of Survivor Series
It was announced at Crown Jewel that NXT will take part in the Survivor Series for the first time.
WrestleMania ticket on-sale date
WWE announced that tickets for WrestleMania 36 will go sale on Friday, Nov. 15.
For those interested in travel packages, they go on sale this Tuesday and info can be found through www.wwe.com.
On This Day鈥�
In 1997, Bret Hart gave his notice to WWE that he would opt out of his 20-year, $20 million deal to go wrestle for WCW.
It would help snowball WWE towards the 鈥淢ontreal Screwjob鈥� at Survivor Series a little over a week later.
This week蘑菇视频 question:
Do you think AEW will move to Mondays to go head-to-head with Raw? Fred, Uniontown.
I do not. While AEW drew a great number for its first episode, its numbers have dropped significantly ever since.
Wednesday night, granted it was against World Series competition, AEW drew 759,000 fans compared to the 1.4 million it drew for its debut on Oct. 2.
NXT is down as well as it went from 891,000 on Oct. 2 to 580,000 Wednesday night.
Email questions/comments to Bill at powerhousehughes@gmail.com or tweet them to me @BillHughes_III.