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This week in WWE news has been dominated by one thing - WWE Crown Jewel. In the wake of journalist Jamal Khashoggi's disappearance and subsequent accusations towards Saudi Arabia that they ordered his assassination, WWE have received pressure to cancel the huge event.
But, Crown Jewel isn't the only thing going on in the WWE, oh no it isn't! We've gotten some huge announcements this week from the WWE, we've seen a record broken, an injury and a potential Superstar return!
So, before we head into the deep dive of this week's WWE news, let's familiarise ourselves with what happened last week with WWE News Roundup - 7th October, 2018. Read it? Good, let's go then.
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#1 The saga of WWE's Crown Jewel event
Okay, let's recap everything that's happened with Crown Jewel so far.
We reported that WWE held a crisis meeting at 2:30 pm Thursday afternoon where they discussed how they were going to respond to questions and the PR side of things. This meeting also discussed looking at moving the event somewhere else (with the UK strongly considered) and several Superstars and WWE employees not wanting to go to Saudi Arabia.
Then pressure started growing on WWE to officially cancel the event after they released a statement saying they were 'monitoring the situation'. United States Senators publicly called for WWE to take action, with Linda McMahon, who co-owns the company, working for Donald Trump, making it a politically sticky situation.
Other news outlets then started reporting that WWE were looking at backup plans and that the majority of the roster didn't want to go to Saudi Arabia, it was then noticed that WWE hadn't mentioned Saudi Arabia on Twitter for several days.
We then further reported that the likelihood of WWE cancelling the event was 75% with the three main Crown Jewel matches being moved to Survivor Series and the World Cup being dropped or held separately somewhere else.
It was then reported that WWE had removed all references to Saudi Arabia from their website and held withheld ticket sales, whilst the latter was incorrect, the WWE have indeed distanced themselves from Saudi Arabia.
The final updates were conflicting with several sites reporting that the event was going ahead and several sites reporting that it had in fact already been cancelled. My source is of the opinion now that it is all-but cancelled pending an official announcement, but it's not over until it's over.
#2 Shayna Baszler busted open at live event
During a six-women tag-team main event between Shayna Baszler, Jessamyn Duke and Marina Shafir Vs Io Shirai, Jessie Elaban and Lacey Lane Shayna Baszler picked up a gruesome head injury.
She was cleaned up several times throughout the match, but insisted on continuing. She even picked up the win for her team, tapping out Lacey Lane.
It doesn't seem likely that Baszler will suffer any long-term consequences from this injury and her scheduled appearances and Evolution match against Kairi Sane will not be affected!
#3 WWE unveil NXT UK Tag-Team Titles
Triple H and Shawn Michaels were in Plymouth for the weekend of WWE NXT UK tapings that were taking place there. They treated the live crowd to an appearance on Saturday and then teased a big announcement for Sunday.
That big announcement? WWE NXT UK Tag Team Titles of course!
Triple H and NXT UK General Manager Jonny Saint unveiled the latest title belts for the NXT UK Division, and I'm sure you'll all agree that they look amazing. In fact, there's definitely a case to be argued for the NXT UK belts being the best-looking belts in the company!
But, this brings me to the next bit of news!
#4 WWE announce NXT UK air date and time
NXT UK had undergone several tapings, it'd amassed a great roster of talent, it'd crowned a male and a female champion and it was... well, it was just been waiting for the WWE to air it somewhere. That is until now.
That's because the WWE finally revealed what was going on with their British based NXT expansion, incredibly announcing that it would start airing on the WWE Network from 8 PM UK time, starting from the 17th October, 2018.
They allegedly have eighteen episodes already ready to go and just filmed a whole bunch more in Plymouth, so get excited folks.
#5 Pete Dunne is WWE's longest reigning modern champion
Pete Dunne approaching the record was on last week's News Roundup, but it's a week later and Dunne still holds the NXT UK Title which now makes him the longest reigning champion in modern WWE history.
Dunne has successfully surpassed Asuka's reign of 510 days, by standing at 513 days and counting. He's beaten off challenges from the likes of Johnny Gargano, Roderick Strong, Ricochet, Adam Cole and Tyler Bate to retain the belt.
Incredibly, with NXT UK having eighteen episodes recorded, and Dunne still being the champion in the latest set of tapings it looks like he'll definitely be NXT UK Champion until at least next year, unless WWE have filmed stuff out of sequence.
#6 Bray Wyatt teases new character for return
The last time we saw Bray Wyatt the 'Deleters of Worlds' had dissolved after losing the Raw tag-team belts and he was teasing the formation of a new faction, and has since been missing from both social media and WWE television.
Now Wyatt is back on Twitter and has teased a new character for his return. It's something to do with a doctor making observations of a patient who appears to be incredibly unstable. We've no idea what it all means, but feel free to take a look!
Of course, if Wyatt is the 'patient' it doesn't make a great deal of sense for 'Dr. M' to be tweeting updates on him via his own Twitter page, but don't read too much into it!
