WWE Crown Jewel is going down right now in Riyadh, but there’s a pretty weird catch for anybody watching from home. What you’re seeing on the broadcast apparently already happened several minutes ago.
According to False Finish, Crown Jewel is airing on a roughly 10-to-15-minute tape delay. The TV feed is running behind what fans sitting inside the arena in Saudi Arabia are actually seeing live. The reason apparently comes down to WWE’s setup for Crown Jewel. There’s only a minimal production crew working on the ground in Riyadh, with the rest of the production being handled from Stamford.
That extra 10-to-15 minutes gives WWE enough breathing room to keep everything running smoothly between Saudi Arabia and Connecticut. It also creates a pretty funny situation where thousands of people inside the building basically know the future compared to everybody watching at home.
Cody Rhodes and Randy Orton kicked off Crown Jewel with their Last Man Standing Match, so the delay was already in play from the opening bell. That also means results, photos and other spoilers can potentially start leaking online before viewers watching the actual broadcast even get there.
So if you’re watching Crown Jewel and scrolling through Twitter at the same time, maybe don’t refresh too aggressively. With the live crowd sitting more than 10 minutes ahead, tonight is probably a pretty easy night to accidentally spoil yourself.
What do you make of WWE running Crown Jewel on a 10-to-15-minute delay while production is handled between Riyadh and Stamford? Let us know what you think in the comments.
