Crown Jewel from Saudi Arabia might've filed into the "better than expected" category, but WWE didn't pull off a strong show across the board. 

Largely, that was thanks to the horrendous Brock Lesnar vs. Cain Velasquez match. 

This one was a dud in every sense of the word. WWE seemed to have the right idea: capture the magic of a UFC fight by having a quick finish, like another Goldberg-Lesnar match. 

Except Goldberg-Lesnar was actually good. 

Listing out the problems with the Cain-Lesnar match would take a long, long time. But, most importantly, it just didn't come off as fun to watch. The two had a slap fight with little impact, got on the mat, and then it was over. 

Suspension of disbelief is a big part of WWE. That shouldn't need a big explanation—look at the new universal champ, The Fiend. But watching two guys we know are world-class fighters pretend they are terrible at it was cringeworthy at best. 

Everybody comes out looking worse. Lesnar looks soft for hitting the mat. He won, but then got the snot beat out of him by Rey Mysterio with a chair. 

And Cain might not be able to come back from this, even by WWE standards. The man who conquered Lesnar, by all accounts, should've won. Instead, he ended up with Lesnar on his back and somehow got tapped out. Not only did he tap, he didn't last as long as we've seen other WWE Superstars who have eventually tapped to similar moves. 

What's even worse from Cain's perspective is we've seen him do some interesting wrestling things with other promotions. This wasn't even close to that. 

Speaking of Rey, he hurt everybody involved. Rey got thrown around by Lesnar at first, then came back and beat the tar out of Lesnar with a chair until the Beast Incarnate retreated. So, in essence, Rey never needed Cain to defend him or his son in the first place, and in the end, Cain needed to be bailed out. Lesnar doesn't look good by either measure. 

One could argue this is looking entirely too closely at the subject matter. But on a night WWE showed us that cards in Saudi Arabia can have a significant impact on the normal programming and storylines via The Fiend's title win, this sloppy match simply can't get waved away as a one-off thing to be ignored. 

And it all loops back to entertainment. This wasn't fun. It devolved into a UFC-lite match, not a wrestling match. This was a wrestling card, and in the middle of it there was a fake fight. 

In the grander scheme, this makes the WWE title scene on SmackDown—now on Fox, by the way—look weak. Or on Raw, pending whatever happens with Lesnar supposedly quitting SmackDown. Either way, Lesnar took the strap off Kofi Kingston in a matter of moments, making him look like a complete chump in the process, all so Lesnar and Cain could go out and pull off this stunt. 

It's a shame, really. Like anything else, WWE can write its way out of this and eventually correct course. But this whole signing Cain thing and throwing him immediately into the top title scene with Lesnar wreaks of panic. Presumably, WWE needed to impress Fox and the casual fans there. 

Oh, and All Elite Wrestling had an interest in Cain, too. 

The reasoning behind bringing on Cain is all speculation here, of course. WWE brought him on and immediately felt like it had to throw him in the top program with the top guy. But playing connecting the dots a bit sure doesn't paint everything in a great light. 

We'll see if Lesnar keeps defending the title and showing up regularly on the blue brand, unlike his title runs on Raw. If he does, it would be a whole lot easier to move past this botch of a match at Crown Jewel. 

From the looks of it, WWE isn't done with Lesnar and Mysterio just yet, but how it gets salvaged, and whether Cain is a part of that, is hard to say. Like the Seth Rollins-Fiend dud at Hell in a Cell, the Crown Jewel dud probably sounded great on paper but was miserable in execution. 

WWE needs to hope a similar smart rebound is in store, as everyone left Saudi Arabia looking worse.