WWE: John Cena vs. Solo Sikoa Announced for Crown Jewel 2023, Cleveland Front-runner for SummerSlam 2024, More News

Oct 27, 2023

WWE Announces John Cena vs. Solo Sikoa for Crown Jewel 2023, Updated Card

WWE announced earlier today one new official match for the card of their Crown Jewel 2023 event, which takes place on November 4th in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.

This new match is a singles match of John Cena vs. Solo Sikoa.

BREAKING: As first announced by @people, "The Greatest of All Time" @JohnCena will go one-on-one with @WWESoloSikoa at #WWECrownJewel in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia! pic.twitter.com/hUlQ1lEnqX
— WWE (@WWE) October 27, 2023

Updated card for WWE Crown Jewel 2023:

Undisputed WWE Universal Championship – LA Knight vs. Roman Reigns (c)
WWE World Heavyweight Championship – Drew McIntyre vs. Seth Rollins (c)
WWE Women’s World Championship Fatal Five-way match – Shayna Baszler vs. Nia Jax vs. Raquel Rodriguez vs. Zoey Stark vs. Rhea Ripley (c)
United States Championship – Logan Paul vs. Rey Mysterio (c)
Cody Rhodes vs. Damian Priest
John Cena vs. Solo Sikoa

Cleveland Reportedly Front-runner for Host City for SummerSlam 2024

The city of Cleveland, Ohio reportedly is currently the front-runner to be the host city for next year’s SummerSlam event, according to Fightful Select.

It was reported that several Cleveland city officials and Cleveland Browns officials spoken to stated that they have heard of Cleveland being the current front-runner to host SummerSlam 2024. One WWE source spoken to reportedly stated that they had heard the same and Cleveland was likely going to be the choice for the host city of the event.

It was reported that it is currently not known if this event would take place at the Cleveland Browns or Progressive Field should the event actually take place in the city.

WWE News & Notes

PWInsider’s Mike Johnson reported that his sources stated that WWE officials currently have scheduled for NXT talent Tiffany Stratton to work at next week’s main roster live events.

As noted before, WWE’s parent company Endeavor announced this past Wednesday that they are currently exploring “strategic alternatives” in regards to their and TKO Group’s recent stocks value issues. PWInsider’s Mike Johnson reported that his sources stated that Endeavor and TKO Group CEO Ari Emanuel had sent an internal email to TKO employees this past Wednesday regarding the company’s recent announcement. This email reportedly stated that TKO Group Holdings would not be involved nor would it see any changes as part of Endeavor’s plans for their “strategic alternatives.”

Chelsea Green surpassed the milestone of 100 days as one half of the current WWE Women’s Tag Team Champion on Thursday.

This past Tuesday’s NXT Halloween Havoc 2023 Night 1 show featured rock band New Year’s Day singing a live performance of their song “Vampyre” to open the show. Big Media Pictures recently announced that the band will be making a return appearance for next week’s NXT Halloween Havoc 2023 Night 2 show.

Former WCW talent Alex Wright recently revealed on Twitter that he was in attendance at WWE’s house show event this past Wednesday in Munich, Germany.

The Grevin Museum in Paris, France was recently involved in a controversy regarding a new wax statue of Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson that was recently unveiled at the museum. This controversy revolved around the skin tone for Johnson being wrong and him resembling more as the Mr. Clean character. Johnson recently commented on Instagram over the controversy stating that he would have a talk with museum officials to get a new updated wax statue created for him with the correct skin tone. In response to the controversy and Johnson’s comments, the museum recently unveiled a new updated wax statue fixing the issues caused by the original statue.

Big E recently announced on Twitter that the world premiere of his new short film with Our Heroes Rock titled Bridges will premiere at Urban World Film Festival in New York on November 4.

In a recent stream session on Twitch, Johnny Gargano revealed that DIY will be debuting a new entrance theme song at this Monday’s WWE RAW show. Gargano stated “When DIY debuted, that song they gave us, it was just a stock song. It wasn’t like it was handpicked for us of anything like that. We were not under contract yet, it just caught on. Me and Tommaso are very excited about the potential of something new. I think it could be so much more. You’ll just have to tune in on Monday. It’s going to be very cool. I think it has a very cool vibe. It’s something we’re both pumped about. We hope you guys dig it too. We dig it. It’s something fresh, something new, and hopefully something that catches on. Years from now, hopefully, you guys talk about that song.” (Transcript h/t: Fightful.com)

In a recent interview with Haus of Wrestling podcast, NXT talent Ilja Dragunov gave his thoughts about getting to share the ring with Cody Rhodes during the October 10th episode of NXT. Dragunov stated “It was very interesting and absolutely a very special moment not only for me, but also for the audience in the arena and probably for the people watching on TV because it is as I said in the promo — meeting a person in the ring who stands, in a different way, for the exact same things that you stand for, that is something that very rarely happens. Look at Cody Rhodes, he brings an energy, a fire, a passion to the ring in front of those arenas, in front of those people that not a lot of other people can do. I do that too for NXT. People feel what I do, the passion, the fire I bring. This is something very similar and I mean, this moment standing me and Cody Rhodes together in one ring, I was scared that there was going to be an energy overload.” (Transcript h/t: Fightful.com)

In a recent interview with WrestlingNews.co’s Ten Count podcast, Shotzi gave her thoughts about her decision to shave her head this past summer. Shotzi stated “My sister was going through chemotherapy and she started losing her hair. She told me that she didn’t want to wait for it to all fall out. She was going to shave it off. I immediately went to Hunter and was like, ‘Hey, my sister’s going through chemo. I want to support her. I want to be there for her. I want to shave my hair off too. Can we make it not weird and make it part of a storyline so I don’t just show up one day with no hair,’ and he was totally for it. I got to work with Bayley with it too, which Bayley has always been a huge role model to me, so to have that moment with her and share this meaningful moment with her was really awesome. I didn’t really say much of it, but like, everyone kind of knew anyway and that really resonated with my sister, and she got like a lot of support from my fans, which I really love and appreciate too.” (Transcript h/t: WrestlingNews.co)