As made evident on this week’s episode of SmackDown LIVE, Daniel Bryan will no longer be participating in the WWE Championship Match at Crown Jewel. Instead, he had his one-on-one match for the title with champion AJ Styles on the very same episode of SmackDown.
According to Wrestling Observer Newsletter, there is more than one reason why Bryan refused to perform in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Apparently, Bryan didn’t have much knowledge about the extremely conservative environment of the country until he performed there at the Greatest Royal Rumble back in April.
Since then, Bryan was adamant on not performing in that country because of their ill-treatment of homosexuals and the fact that Sami Zayn wasn’t allowed to perform there solely because of his Syrian heritage.
Furthermore, Dave Meltzer notes that Bryan even requested WWE to let The Miz win their match at Super Show-Down and get a shot at the title at Crown Jewel. However, WWE went with their decision of letting Bryan go over and become the number one contender anyway.
