Crown Jewel 2023: Drew McIntyre Starts Cracking While Roman Reigns Keeps Winning the Same Way

McIntyre enters with a useful promise: he wants Rollins healthy enough that nobody can excuse the result. That strips the match of outside-story noise and lets the two wrestlers build around Drew's power against Seth's speed and accumulated damage. The opening minutes are patient rather than frantic.

McIntyre catches dives, throws Rollins with the overhead suplex and repeatedly forces the champion to create offense from disadvantage. Rollins answers with the Pedigree, but Drew's Claymore near fall is the match's peak because it comes close enough to make a title change feel possible without requiring it. The crowd responds accordingly.

Rollins escapes the next Claymore, lands the superkick, Pedigree and Stomp, and wins cleanly. Drew does not attack him afterward; he simply leaves. That restraint becomes more valuable once McIntyre's bitterness develops over the following weeks.

The best match on the card and a strong chapter in Drew's slow turn.

The five-way works best when it accepts that organization is impossible and gives each challenger a short window to matter. Nia Jax supplies mass, Raquel Rodriguez provides the closest power match for Ripley, Shayna Baszler brings submissions and Zoey Stark provides speed. The rotation keeps the match moving without making any one challenger feel particularly close to winning.

Ripley spends enough time displaced from the center that the others can create combinations, then returns whenever the match needs a focal point. The final avalanche Riptide onto the pile is the correct kind of excessive finish for a five-person title defense. It gives Ripley a decisive visual without requiring her to dominate everyone individually.

The match is entertaining in bursts and forgettable as a larger championship story. Ripley feels important throughout; the challengers mostly feel temporary.

Cena approaches the match like a veteran trying to solve one weapon. He attacks Solo's right arm because the Samoan Spike is the danger, which gives the first half a simple and useful piece of psychology. Solo responds by turning the match into a physical grind.

Cena eventually reaches the familiar comeback and briefly has the crowd believing the story may become inspirational. Solo refuses that direction. He lands the Spike, then another, then keeps hitting it until Cena is no longer participating in a competitive match so much as surviving a public dismantling.

That is the point. The match is average as wrestling and effective as elevation. Cena's post-match ovation supplies the emotion the bell-to-bell work lacks.

Paul continues doing the irritating thing where a celebrity wrestler looks far more comfortable than the category should allow. Rey gives him an ideal opponent because Mysterio can create movement around Paul's size, catch mistakes and make every athletic counter look like part of a wrestling match rather than a rehearsed stunt. Their timing is strong from the beginning.

Paul's Buckshot Lariat and moonsault fallaway slam give him offense that feels distinct, while Rey's pace prevents the match from becoming a showcase entirely built around Paul's highlights. One particularly dangerous springboard sequence is rescued cleanly, which says something about how quickly Paul has developed situational awareness. The crowd gradually buys into the title change possibility.

The brass knuckles decide it after Santos Escobar inadvertently leaves them behind. Paul catches Rey with the loaded punch and wins his first WWE championship. The finish is cheap, useful and completely appropriate for the character.

A good title match with a memorable result.

IYO SKY and Bianca Belair are capable of wrestling a cleaner and more ambitious championship match than this one becomes. The athletic exchanges are sharp, Belair's power gives IYO natural obstacles to solve and the champion's movement keeps the pace from stalling. Then the match increasingly becomes about who is standing outside it.

Bayley distracts the referee at a critical moment, which already pushes the finish toward familiar Damage CTRL territory. The larger surprise arrives when Kairi Sane returns and attacks Belair, allowing IYO to hit Over the Moonsault and retain. The crowd is processing the return as much as the finish.

Kairi's appearance is historically useful and immediately changes the faction. The cost is that another IYO title defense ends with someone else doing the decisive work. The angle wins; the match settles for good.

Cody and Priest wrestle a match that feels professionally assembled from pieces viewers have already seen throughout the Judgment Day feud. Priest controls with size, Cody rallies, and the expected parade of Bálor, McDonagh and Dominik arrives when the result needs complication. The work is clean and the structure is familiar.

Jey Uso neutralizes the interference with superkicks and a chair, leaving the two actual wrestlers to finish the match. Cody then strings together the Cody Cutter, Bionic Elbow and three Cross Rhodes for a decisive pin. The crowd reacts, but the whole sequence feels more like weekly-story maintenance than a destination.

Both men will reach much larger places within months. Here they are still stuck inside the Judgment Day traffic jam.

LA Knight's greatest asset is the crowd's willingness to believe with him. Reigns controls much of the early pace, but every Knight comeback produces a reaction large enough to make the challenger feel more dangerous than his résumé says he should be. The match does not need technical novelty because the audience supplies urgency.

Knight survives a Spear, fights out of the guillotine and lands BFT near the ropes. For a moment the building has the exact near fall it came to see. Jimmy Uso puts Roman's foot on the rope, and the match enters territory every regular viewer recognizes.

Knight attacks Jimmy and briefly looks defiant enough to overcome the numbers, but Reigns Spears him through the barricade and again in the ring to retain. The work is good, the heat is excellent and the finish is a rerun.

That contradiction defines late-2023 Roman Reigns matches. The champion still feels enormous. The path to keeping him champion increasingly feels predetermined.