WWE Rumor Mill: WWE was considering alternate plans for Daniel Bryan at Crown Jewel

Modified Nov 02, 2018 08:30 GMT

Bryan taps to the Calf Crusher on SmackDown Live.

What's the story?

The WWE had a series of backup plans for Daniel Bryan not appearing at Crown Jewel, including pre-recording his WWE Championship match, according to Dave Meltzer.

In case you didn't know

Earlier this year, Daniel Bryan returned to competition, after retiring due to medical issues in 2016.

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Also earlier in 2018, the WWE signed a lucrative ten-year deal with the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, with the company hoping to bring western values to the area, and hosted the Greatest Royal Rumble in April.

At Super Show-Down, the YES! Movement leader defeated The Miz to become the number one contender for the WWE Championship at Crown Jewel.

This week on SmackDown Live, Bryan had his Title match, losing via submission to AJ Styles.

This was done to write Bryan out of the show, due to Bryan refusing to work the show, due to the nation's extreme laws against women and the LGBT community.

The heart of the matter

According to Meltzer, there was a plan to pre-record the match in the United States, and then air the match on the WWE Network during the broadcast.

The match was reportedly going to happen near the company's Performance Center, and would have been heavily edited to make it look like it was appearing in Saudi Arabia.

This would have meant that the only people who didn't know the match was happening would be those love in attendance at the King Saudi University Stadium in Riyadh.

However, WWE decided against the pre-taped match, as they felt it would only bring more attention to Bryan not attending the show live and would look bad if the media reported about the company trying to fool the fans.