Sasha Banks

Bleacher Report catches you up on the latest news from the WWE Universe.

WWE Reportedly Happy with Crown Jewel

WWE officials are reportedly leaving Saudi Arabia with a positive outlook regarding Thursday's Crown Jewel pay-per-view.

According to PWInsider (h/t WrestlingInc.com's Marc Middleton), people within WWE are "really thrilled" with the show and the fact that it was so well received by WWE's fanbase.

PWInsider also reported that WWE is planning to return to Saudi Arabia for another show during the first quarter of 2022.

While WWE often receives bad publicity for holding shows in Saudi Arabia because of the practices of the country's ruling regime, that wasn't so much the case when it came to Thursday's Crown Jewel show.

One of the reasons for that is the fact that the show delivered three fantastic matches in the form of Edge vs. Seth Rollins inside Hell in a Cell, Becky Lynch vs. Sasha Banks vs. Bianca Belair for the SmackDown Women's Championship and Roman Reigns vs. Brock Lesnar for the Universal Championship.

Also, WWE crowned Xavier Woods as King of the Ring and Zelina Vega as the first winner of the Queen's Crown tournament, both of which were popular decisions.

WWE officials reportedly feel as though Crown Jewel was perhaps the company's best offering ever in Saudi Arabia and one of its best events of 2021.

Given the quality of the matches and the booking decisions, it is difficult to argue with that notion.

Perhaps most importantly, Crown Jewel maintained the heat of Reigns vs. Lesnar and left open the possibility of another match between them in the near future, which would undoubtedly be worthy of a major pay-per-view main event.

Lesnar Calls Out Reigns for SmackDown

Following his controversial loss to Reigns at Crown Jewel, Lesnar had some strong words regarding The Tribal Chief.

WWE tweeted the following quote courtesy of The Beast Incarnate on Thursday:

Lesnar and Reigns met in the main event of Crown Jewel with the Universal Championship on the line, and the highly anticipated battle of behemoths did not disappoint.

Things heated up after the referee inadvertently got knocked out, as Paul Heyman tossed the Universal title belt into the ring between Reigns and Lesnar.

Reigns and Lesnar fought over the belt until The Usos showed up and hit Lesnar with a double superkick. Reigns then used the belt against Lesnar and pinned him to retain the title.

Heyman looked to be in turmoil following the match, leaving fans to wonder whether he was actually trying to help Reigns or Lesnar.

The build toward Thursday's match focused on Heyman's allegiance, and since nothing was solved on that front at Crown Jewel, it is a virtual guarantee there will be a rematch.

Day 1 on Jan. 1 and the Royal Rumble in late January are potential targets for the rematch, or WWE could perhaps hold off on it until WrestleMania 38 in April.

First, all signs point toward another confrontation between Reigns and Lesnar on Friday's SmackDown, and it promises to make for an explosive situation.

Top Dolla Talks Feud with Young Bucks

Hit Row member Top Dolla spoke up this week regarding his recent Twitter feud with AEW tag team The Young Bucks.

The rivalry between Top Dolla and The Young Bucks began last week when Top Dolla tweeted about wrestlers who wear sneakers on television but not in real life:

It was immediately assumed that Top Dolla was referencing Nick and Matt Jackson since they wear expensive pairs of Jordans on AEW programming as part of their heel persona.

According to WrestlingInc.com's Marc Middleton, The Young Bucks responded by changing their Twitter bio to: "Spent more on sneakers in September than the entire NXT roster did."

Top Dolla later clapped back with a creative diss track that once again seemed to be aimed at The Young Bucks:

Speaking this week on his Jobbing Out podcast (h/t Subhojeet Mukherjee of Ringside News), Top Dolla had plenty to say regarding The Bucks:

The craziest part about all of this is I used to go watch them cats, and they just got in their feelings because they let their Twitter minions gas them up. And they realized very quickly, I'm not the one to play with. The thing is, to me, when they first did the NXT bio, I was like, oh, that's rude. I’m not even in NXT anymore, and I know that you know that. So for you to do that, kind of felt like you were saying I should still be in NXT or you just want to s--t on NXT for no reason, which is A, disrespectful and B, unnecessary.

But even that I was like, you know what, I don't feel like dealing with these Twitter people. I'm gonna let these boys slide, then they updated the bio again, and it said, 'We'll make you trend just by mentioning you in our bio.' And I took that personally. I was like, oh, okay. That's a very interesting comment because to me, I read that as, you're a nobody, and we could make you popular.

Regardless of who was most responsible, Top Dolla undoubtedly received a great deal of attention on social media last week and got people talking about his call-up to the main roster.

Along with Isaiah "Swerve" Scott, Ashante Thee Adonis and B-Fab, Top Dolla helped form one of the most popular and fastest-rising stables in wrestling in the form of Hit Row.

It was less than six months ago that Hit Row debuted on NXT, and the group is already set to make a big move, as it was selected to SmackDown as part of the WWE Draft.

With the draft results officially taking effect Friday, Hit Row could make its main roster debut as soon as this week's episode of SmackDown.

Listen to Ring Rust Radio for all of the hot wrestling topics. Catch the latest episode in the player below (warning: strong language).

Becky Lynch defeated Sasha Banks and Bianca Belair in a Triple Threat match at WWE Crown Jewel in Saudi Arabia Thursday to retain the SmackDown Women's Championship.

The Man used her ingenuity to pick up the win, as she grabbed the ropes for leverage while having Banks in an inside cradle, resulting in a pinfall victory.

However, all three women gave everything they had and put on a spectacular contest that featured no shortage of entertaining spots and moments:

Thursday's match was a couple of months in the making.

Banks was supposed to challenge Belair for the SmackDown women's title in a singles bout at SummerSlam, but moments before the contest began, it was announced that The Boss would not be able to compete.

That led to Lynch making her surprise return to WWE after being out of action for more than a year on maternity leave.

It wasn't long before The Man displayed a new attitude, as she offered Belair a handshake, only to pull her in and punch her in the face. She then hit The EST of WWE with a variation of the Rock Bottom and beat her for the title in just 26 seconds.

Lynch established herself as a full-fledged heel coming out of SummerSlam, which helped elevate Belair and make her an even more popular babyface.

That led to a SmackDown Women's Championship match between the two at Extreme Rules, but there was no definitive winner, as Banks made her return after several weeks away, causing a no-contest.

WWE then announced a Triple Threat for the SmackDown women's title between Lynch, Belair and Banks at Crown Jewel.

There was already a great deal of excitement surrounding the bout given the ability of the three Superstars involved, but it became even more intriguing because of the recent WWE draft.

Despite being SmackDown women's champion, Lynch was moved from the blue brand to Raw. Belair also made the move to Raw, while The Boss remained on Friday nights. Accordingly, as SmackDown's sole representative in the match, Banks entered Crown Jewel as the favorite to win its women's title.

Despite that, Lynch retained the title, which creates some uncertainty regarding what it means for Big Time Becks and the championship moving forward.

For now, however, it appears as though The Man is poised to bring the SmackDown Women's Championship with her to the red brand.

Listen to Ring Rust Radio for all of the hot wrestling topics. Catch the latest episode in the player below (warning: some language NSFW).