After every WWE PPV, we ask you all to rank each match on the show using the star rating system made famous by Wrestling Observer’s Dave Meltzer.
The results are in from Crown Jewel, a show that’s always overshadowed by the morally dubious (at best) relationship between WWE and its host country. Here’s how our little corner of the wrestle web graded what happened in the ring in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia on Oct. 21 - and how our subjective grades compare to Meltzer’s.
Many have asked “why Dave?”, which to me is fairly obvious. Love, hate, or don’t care about him, the Observer Star Rating is the proverbial industry standard. No one else’s are tracked by Wikipedia and other web outlets. You can’t place online bets on what grades other pundits will give big matches.
But in order to not make this all about Meltz, we added another fan-voted rating to the mix - this one from Cagematch. That site uses a ten point scale, so in calculating the difference between our score and theirs, I halved the Cagematch rating.
Here’s what that all looks like:
There’s minor differences of opinion, but generally speaking we’re all on the same page. We liked the Universal title fight more than Dave or Cagematch’s voters, while they preferred the WWE championship match (based on its low vote total, Cagsiders seem to have not even cared about Big E’s slobberknocker with Drew McIntyre). This site was much more generous to the Queen’s Crown Final than anyone else, and Cagematchers REALLY don’t like middle aged men doing violence to one another, apparently.
Edge’s Hell in a Cell win over Seth Rollins was universally praised, something we could have seen coming since it ran away with our “Match of the Night” poll after Crown Jewel ended.
Overall, Crown Jewel was a hit across the board - from the perspective of in-ring action, anyway. The average Cageside match rating of 3.56 made it the highest rated WWE PPV of 2021. It’s the Observer’s second best rated WWE show of the year. I didn’t start tracking Cagematch’s ratings until after WrestleMania, so they’re not included in this yearly averages chart - but Crown Jewel is tied for their second highest rated WWE event since April.
Do Cageside’s Community Ratings match up with your personal ones? Any final thoughts on Crown Jewel?
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