Ten days before WWE Crown Jewel, Riyadh Season pulled it out of its stadium. Three days before Canelo Alvarez vs. Christian Mbilli, nothing about the boxing card has moved except the start time.
“We would like to inform you that WWE Crown Jewel has been moved to a new venue,” Riyadh Season posted on X Wednesday in Arabic and English. “All ticket holders will receive a full refund, and tickets will be re-released to everyone within the next 48 hours.” No new venue was named and no reason was given, according to Fightful. Fightful Select and PWInsider both reported the November 7 show is expected to stay in Riyadh at a different building. WWE had not commented.
Dave Meltzer of the Wrestling Observer went further Wednesday afternoon. “As of right now, the Crown Jewel show is being moved to the Kingdom Arena in Riyadh, the same place Saturday’s Canelo fight is taking place. So still in the city,” Meltzer posted. “Was also emphasized to me that is ‘that of this hour.'” Turki Alalshikh’s posts and the ticketing site list Saturday’s card at The Venue, the indoor hall at Boulevard City; Kingdom Arena is the larger indoor arena in the same complex, and several outlets have used the two names interchangeably this month. Either way, the report puts WWE and Canelo in the same complex a week apart.
The original venue was Riyadh Season Stadium at KAFD, the outdoor stadium that opened for the Royal Rumble in January, where a fan video Friday showed the Crown Jewel stage already going up. If Meltzer’s report holds, the move is from an open-air stadium to an enclosed arena a few miles away. It came six days after TKO chairman and CEO Ari Emanuel said on Fox News that “everything is still set” and that a team was “working on this, and if that doesn’t happen, where we can move it. It’s a daily monitoring,” as BoxingInsider reported. Whatever the reason, the announcement, the refund and the re-release came from Riyadh Season, not from WWE.
Three things happened in Riyadh on Tuesday that are reportable on their own. Saudi Civil Defense said falling fragments from two intercepted Houthi ballistic missiles caused material damage to a building, a project under construction and a vehicle in the capital, with no injuries and no district named, according to Voice of Emirates. The Houthis claimed they had targeted the Saudi defense ministry in Riyadh. And it was the first time since the October 10 airport attack that Saudi authorities acknowledged damage inside the capital. None of that has been connected to Crown Jewel by anyone on the record, and BoxingInsider is not connecting it.
The boxing card is staying where it is. The only change this week came from DAZN, which quietly reposted the schedule late Monday with the card starting hours earlier: prelims at 10 a.m. ET, the main card at 1 p.m. ET and the Alvarez-Mbilli ring walk at roughly 4:30 p.m. ET, which is 11:30 p.m. in Riyadh, according to NY Fights. DAZN gave no reason. The practical effect is a Canelo pay-per-view in the American afternoon and a card that ends before midnight in Riyadh rather than at 3 a.m. Dan Rafael has reported the DAZN announce team is expected to call it from a studio in London; DAZN has not commented on that either.
Alvarez has been in Riyadh since the early hours of Monday, when he arrived with Oleksandr Usyk roughly forty minutes before a Civil Defense alert for a missile intercepted over the city, as BoxingInsider reported. “I see a beautiful Riyadh. I saw in the media a lot of things but I’m always confident about coming to Riyadh, and I feel safe here,” he told reporters Monday. “I feel like I’m at home, and I don’t see anything bad.” Mbilli, Jaime Munguia, Rafael Espinoza and Arthur Biyarslanov are in the city. The official grand arrivals are Wednesday evening Riyadh time, with the press conference Thursday and the ceremonial weigh-in Friday.
The card is still one fight short. Lindolfo Delgado’s vacant IBF junior welterweight title fight against Biyarslanov came off Monday when trainer Robert Garcia said the travel plan, arriving Tuesday for a Saturday fight by way of another country and a five-to-six-hour drive, could not work. “Who does that in a world title fight?” Garcia said. “We just couldn’t go.” Biyarslanov’s coach, Samuel Decarie-Drolet, said the team was “working on Plan B, on Plan C.” As of Wednesday, no replacement opponent has been named and neither Top Rank nor the IBF has issued a statement. Rafael Espinoza’s WBO featherweight defense also changed opponents last week, to Ricardo Blandon, for medical reasons on Lorenzo Parra’s side.
The wider picture is unchanged. The State Department’s advisory for Saudi Arabia remains Level 3, Reconsider Travel, updated October 23, with the ordered departure of non-emergency US government employees in effect; reports circulating this week that it was raised to Level 4 are incorrect, per the US Embassy’s own page. Saudi Defense Minister Prince Khalid bin Salman’s talks in Tehran on Monday ended with a four-country statement that they “agreed to continue the dialogue.” Riyadh was targeted again Tuesday and Wednesday morning, and the coalition has reported intercepts aimed at the capital most days this week.
Riyadh Season will name the new building within two days. If it is Kingdom Arena, WWE and Canelo will have worked the same complex a week apart, one under a roof it chose this week and one under a roof it chose months ago. Canelo walks to the ring Saturday at the time DAZN picked, against the champion who flew in before he did, and that is still the only thing on the schedule nobody has touched.
