Final Picks for Roman Reigns vs Brock Lesnar and WWE Crown Jewel 2021 Match Card

This Thursday, WWE returns to Saudi Arabia for the 2021 Crown Jewel pay-per-view.

If you didn't get enough of their previous eight matches, Roman Reigns vs. Brock Lesnar is happening yet again, with Paul Heyman now in the center putting his allegiance in doubt.

A Triple Threat for the SmackDown Women's Championship has draft and roster implications on the line, Edge seeks vengeance against Seth Rollins inside Hell in a Cell, and Goldberg is on his own quest to defeat Bobby Lashley in a No Holds Barred match.

Who is most likely to win these matches as well as the King of the Ring and Queen's Crown tournament finals and everything else set for this card?

Let's go through one more round of predictions as we pick all the winners for Crown Jewel 2021.

The annual PPVs in Saudi Arabia are all over the place in terms of random gimmicks, legends returning and a lack of continuity, but one consistent element is Mansoor getting a share of the spotlight.

So far, the 25-year-old has won a 50-man Battle Royal and defeated both Dolph Ziggler and Cesaro in his home country. Mustafa Ali is just the next person on that list.

Ali hasn't been booked well at all on the main roster. WWE doesn't seem willing to give him a solid push and there's no reason to believe it will change on Thursday with a win over Mansoor, even though it would likely get him major heat from the Riyadh crowd.

After turning his back on his teammate, Ali has been set up to take a fall so that Mansoor can look like a vindicated hero.

Prediction: Mansoor wins.

Goldberg was once a nigh-unstoppable juggernaut, but he's lost more matches in the past few years than his legacy would like to remember.

However, the 54-year-old still boasts one of the most impressive win-loss records of any wrestler out there.

Most recently, he fell to Lashley at SummerSlam. It wasn't his finest hour, and it would have been a bad way to go out if it had been his final match.

However, WWE built in a plan from the start to counteract this by having Goldberg's son, Gage, get involved. Revenge became the driving force for Goldberg and set up the rematch, although there is no WWE title up for grabs on Thursday.

Instead, this is a straight-up No Holds Barred bout where anything goes and The All Mighty can lose without any stakes on the line. It exists solely to give Goldberg his win back and to polish his tarnished image from losing the last time.

Prediction: Goldberg wins.

Kudos to WWE for not dawdling too much on Drew McIntyre wanting a shot at the WWE Championship once Bobby Lashley lost the title.

The Scot was unable to challenge for the title while The All Mighty was champion, but everything became fair game again once the New Day man won the belt on Sept. 13.

That doesn't mean McIntyre is going right back to the top, though. Big E just won this title and is still proving he's worthy of holding it.

Unless WWE wants to throw away all that progress and make Big E a laughing stock, this is more of a situation where he needs to beat a more established main eventer like The Scottish Warrior rather than a story of him getting the title back.

It'll be a hard fight, but Big E will manage to score a pinfall and earn McIntyre's respect as champion.

Prediction: Big E wins.

Under normal circumstances, Finn Balor would be the fan favorite and one of the optimal choices to become the next King of the Ring. It's a logical progression, and it would give him something new to sink his teeth into and possibly a solid reason for a heel turn in the future.

However, he's up against Xavier Woods, who has spent years telling the world that becoming KOTR is one of his biggest career goals. He was speaking about this well before WWE even brought the tournament back and it is clearly a passion for him.

While giving the win to Balor—another popular babyface—would not be something most fans would disagree with, it would be another example of WWE actively booking a big disappointment against someone who cares about the outcome.

Balor is probably winning, but Woods is the sentimental pick. And if WWE wants to prove it isn't trying to crush dreams, he should be crowned.

Prediction: Balor wins, but here's hoping that's wrong.

Confusingly, The Queen of Spades and The Queen of Harts were in this tournament, but Shayna Baszler and Natalya didn't make it to the finals. Instead, it's down to Zelina Vega and Doudrop.

They were far from the favorites, though. WWE doesn't seem to be willing to push Vega for more than two weeks at a time, and it appears Doudrop was told she had to twiddle her fingers and lip-sync her music in order to be a more colorful character, even if it looks a bit ridiculous.

Given the situation, it's hard to imagine the game plan for this is to give the winner a serious push toward championship contention and a title run like some King of the Ring winners have had in the past. Instead, this could well be a ploy to get people talking and give one of these two a new wrinkle to their characters.

Doudrop is still fresh, as she only made her main roster debut in June. Vega needs this more to reestablish herself as an actual contender and not just a former manager who left for a while and has jobbed more often than not.

Vega's the underdog in both size and booking, but she's the more logical choice.

Prediction: Vega wins.

While WWE doesn't always follow this logic, a general rule of thumb is that if a feud is going to continue, a third match is needed to settle the score.

Edge defeated Seth Rollins at SummerSlam and could have been done with this feud, but the story has continued. As such, The Architect came out on top of their follow-up. Now, it's time for The Rated-R Superstar to round things out with a victory that puts him back on top.

Edge appears to be in a split booking strategy since his return. He's had major wins such as the men's Royal Rumble offset by failing to win the Universal Championship twice.

In this case, the only way the feud sees finality is if he gets revenge on Rollins for putting him on the shelf temporarily, regains his momentum and carries that into his next feud.

The whole story is that Edge has the intensity to want to request a Hell in a Cell match in the first place, so he's the one who will reap the benefits of the brutal gimmick.

Prediction: Edge wins.

There has been no indication WWE intends to put the tag team titles back on AJ Styles and Omos and take them off Randy Orton and Riddle just as fast.

Sure, Omos is a behemoth who has swatted Riddle down like a fly, but the last time these teams faced off, RK-Bro took the titles. If all that was just for the belts to go back weeks later, that seems rather pointless.

Instead, this is a different type of pointless because it's a rematch for the sake of filling time. It gets some big names on the card and WWE acts like it is a big deal, but it's just a rerun.

If WWE is feeling sassy, this will be the first time Omos loses for them and gets pinned. However, more than likely, The Phenomenal One will have to play that part again and fall victim to an RKO out of nowhere.

Prediction: RK-Bro wins.

Once Charlotte Flair used a steel chair on Bianca Belair on Monday night to get herself disqualified and retain the Raw Women's Championship, most of the intrigue for this contest went out the window.

Since we know The Queen has been drafted to SmackDown and Becky Lynch will be going to Raw, the belts can't stay on those brands.

Had Belair beaten Flair, that could have meant Sasha Banks had a chance to capture the SmackDown title and keep it on the blue brand. Now, though, we know that's impossible.

The likelihood The EST of WWE will beat Lynch is slim. WWE put the belt back on The Man because of her popularity and won't just go back on that. Banks is here to lose so Belair doesn't look weak and Big Time Becks can retain.

This will then revolve around Lynch and Flair being on top of the two brands as they simply trade titles like The New Day did with The Street Profits last year to get the belts on the corresponding shows.

While this match should be great, the predictable outcome hinders it.

Prediction: Lynch wins.

Brock Lesnar typically has the advantage over Roman Reigns. He has won nearly all their fights, even when it seemed as though there was no way WWE could give The Beast Incarnate the victory yet again.

This time, though, he's facing The Tribal Chief, a version of Reigns that is even more protected than before.

And it's already been teased that Reigns will face Big E at Survivor Series next month. Considering Lesnar's usual schedule of barely appearing more than a handful of times per year, it's doubtful he'll win the title and take that spot off Reigns.

There's a chance Lesnar wins this by disqualification to keep the feud going and milk it for another month or more, but it's much cleaner to just have Reigns retain with a pinfall and call it a day.

Prediction: Reigns wins, or at least retains the title in a count-out or disqualification loss.

Anthony Mango is the owner of the wrestling website Smark Out Moment and the host of the podcast show Smack Talk on YouTube, iTunes and Stitcher. You can follow him on Facebook and elsewhere for more.