Predicting the match order at Crown Jewel 2023

It’s one thing to predict the winners and losers at Crown Jewel 2023, but how about taking a guess at the match order for the event?

Crown Jewel takes place today (Sat., Nov. 4, 2023) in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. It begins at 12 pm ET with the Kickoff show leading right into the main card at 1 pm ET on Peacock in the U.S., WWE Network everywhere else, or your local cable pay-per-view provider.

WWE has announced seven different segments for the main card of this event. Here is my subjective view of how important each of these seven segments rank, ordered from most important to least important.

1. Roman Reigns vs. LA Knight
2. Seth Rollins vs. Drew McIntyre
3. Rey Mysterio vs. Logan Paul
4. IYO SKY vs. Bianca Belair
5. John Cena vs. Solo Sikoa
6. Ripley vs. Jax vs. Baszler vs. Stark vs. Rodriguez
7. Cody Rhodes vs. Damian Priest

Main event

When Roman Reigns wrestles on pay-per-view, his match is the main event. That’s a pretty good rule of thumb to follow. As far as I can tell, the last time this rule was broken was in February 2022 when he fought Goldberg at Elimination Chamber. Goldberg is a terrible worker who had no shot at winning that match, so it’s not surprising that WWE chose the titular chamber gimmick with Brock Lesnar for the main event of that card.

Even though LA Knight is the hottest star in WWE and his match-up with Reigns is the obvious main event choice for Crown Jewel, I’ve seen some folks who don’t like Knight point out that he doesn’t have great matches in the ring, and the outcome against Reigns is too predictable, so Seth Rollins vs. Drew McIntyre should headline this card. After all, Knight is super over because of what he says on the mic, and not because of what he does between the ropes once the bell rings.

I do think there is a chance that Rollins vs. McIntyre is the main event, but that’s only if WWE has a major angle planned for Damian Priest to cash in the Money in the Bank contract. LA Knight’s biggest weakness of not being an elite workrate guy doesn’t matter one bit in that calculation. It’s not like he’s stinking up the joint like Goldberg would. Knight is the most over babyface in WWE right now and absolutely belongs in the main event going up against the most over heel for the top prize in the promotion. It’s a very easy decision for WWE to make at Crown Jewel.

Opening match

Bianca Belair vs. IYO SKY opened the Backlash pay-per-view earlier this year, and it was a great choice for that spot. However, if WWE is looking to make big news with the opening match of Crown Jewel, then it’s an even better idea to to book a championship win for Logan Paul there.

That gives me the following card:

Segment 1: Rey Mysterio vs. Logan Paul
Segment 2:
Segment 3:
Segment 4:
Segment 5:
Segment 6:
Segment 7: Roman Reigns vs. LA Knight

Everything else

After the opener, it’s time to get the least important matches of the night out of the way. Therefore I’ll place Rhea Ripley in Segment 2 and Cody Rhodes in Segment 3. I’m putting Rhea’s match earlier in order to create more distance between the two women’s matches on the card.

If Paul Heyman is going to be ringside for both Solo Sikoa and Roman Reigns’ matches, I don’t think they should be so close to each other in the back end of the card. Therefore I’ll stick Cena vs. Sikoa in Segment 4 before moving on to the remaining title matches.

The only choice left is between Bianca Belair and Seth Rollins for Segment 5 and Segment 6. Seth’s match is a bigger deal on this card, so I’ll place it closer to the main event. WWE can always throw in the rumored Miz TV segment with Grayson Waller between Seth and Roman if they don’t want the two longest matches of the night to go back-to-back.

Finalized card

So here is my final prediction for the match order at Crown Jewel 2023, along with guesses on the bell-to-bell match times:

Segment 1: Rey Mysterio vs. Logan Paul (14 minutes)
Segment 2: Ripley vs. Jax vs. Baszler vs. Stark vs. Rodriguez (11)
Segment 3: Cody Rhodes vs. Damian Priest (12)
Segment 4: John Cena vs. Solo Sikoa (10)
Segment 5: IYO SKY vs. Bianca Belair (15)
Segment 6: Seth Rollins vs. Drew McIntyre (19)
Segment 7: Roman Reigns vs. LA Knight (17)

That’s my prediction for the match order at Crown Jewel. What’s yours?