WWE Almost Made AJ Styles vs Daniel Bryan An Empty Arena Match For WWE Crown Jewel

WWE Crown Jewel is taking place this Friday at noon. If you can’t watch the event or choose not to, you can still get all the updates here on Ringside News. But one match you won’t be seeing or hearing about is AJ Styles defending his WWE Championship against Daniel Bryan.
Bryan didn’t want to go to the show in Saudi Arabia because he didn’t agree with the country’s mindset. Therefore, WWE pulled the trigger early and let the match happen on SmackDown Live this week.
Dave Meltzer noted on Wrestling Observer Radio that WWE had planned as late as Monday to go ahead with the AJ vs Bryan match and air it during WWE Crown Jewel — only it wouldn’t be in Saudi Arabia. In fact, it would be a unique gimmick match instead where no fans were able to see it because it would take place in an empty arena.

“They almost did AJ Styles vs Daniel Bryan empty arena match. That was in the offering to air during the show but I think the feeling was that would call more attention to the fact that Daniel Bryan wouldn’t go to the show.and I think they want that as quiet as possible so they just did the angle that they did on SmackDown to do it that way.”
“But even as late as Monday they were still doing an empty arena match. There was talk of doing it live. There was talk of doing it on tape. There was talk of doing it with a screen that would act like it was Saudi Arabia and not showing it in Saudi Arabia so people wouldn’t get mad in Saudi Arabia — maybe doing it in intermission in Saudi Arabia and putting the match on during intermission and acting like it’s there.”
“But they figured if they did it with like a screen showing Saudi Arabia then there would be no — the crowd wouldn’t be reacting to the match because they weren’t seeing it so it would be so obviously fake so you couldn’t do that.”
“Then the idea of an empty arena match — you know in today’s wrestling empty arena matches are probably going to suck because crowds they’ve seen every move in the world and the only thing they get off on is the crowd getting off. That’s what determines a good match now, did you get the crowd going at a certain pace because it’s not like you can do a whole bunch of moves and impress people because everybody does all sorts of moves. So an empty arena match is almost for sure going to suck so there was that issue as well.”

It looks like we got our answer about what they were going to do with AJ Styles vs Daniel Bryan at WWE Crown Jewel — they’ve already had the match on SmackDown Live. But, only time will tell if WWE will get brave enough to try an empty arena match but apparently, they almost did one here instead of giving the match to the Saudis.
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