The next big WWE international megashow, Crown Jewel, is set for Nov. 2 in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, the second show bought and paid for by the Saudi royal family as part of a 10-year deal that is reportedly paying WWE $50 million per show.
Emphasis there: per show.
The money is so good that WWE legend Shawn Michaels, who has been swearing for years that no amount of money could lure him out of retirement, found himself lured out of retirement, to compete in an old-geezer tag-team match.
So, we’ve established, gobs of money.
Blood money.
WWE finds itself in quite the diplomatic pickle right now.
Turkish officials have pinned the disappearance and apparent murder of Jamal Khashoggi, a U.S. resident and journalist, and critic of the Saudi royal family, on an assassination team that they say was acting under orders from Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman.
That would be the same Mohammed Bin Salman who pushed for the deal with WWE to bring wrestling to the kingdom, and who has reportedly been behind the efforts to bring back legends like Michaels, Undertaker and Triple H for the shows.
Saudi Arabia, oddly, maybe, to those of us in the West, has a rabid base of fans of American pro wrestling, and the WWE shows seem to fit into Bin Salman’s efforts to open his country more to the outside world.
Which is all well and good, until you lure a critic to your embassy for the purpose of kidnapping him and returning him to Saudi Arabia, which is what Turkish police are saying was the plot, before it all went wrong, he ended up dead, then dismembered.
There are, of course, much, much bigger issues at play here. President Trump has been trying to open up more friendly relations with the Saudi royal family, after a chilly eight years of U.S-Saudi relations in the Obama years, and has a $110 billion arms deal on the table that Sen. Tim Kaine, among others, is suggesting could be taken off the table.
Saudi Arabia has been skirting American goodwill for some time now. On the one hand a strong Middle Eastern ally, we also know that Saudi Arabia was the home to 15 of the 19 terrorists involved in the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on New York City and Washington, and that there were likely links to high-level Saudi officials and the terror cells involved.
So, in that context, our little WWE wrestling show. WWE is “currently monitoring the situation,” according to one of the most tepid of official statements that you’ll see in these kinds of instances.
Obviously, $50 million shows are hard to turn your nose up to. Total live-event revenues for WWE in 2017 were $151.7 million, encompassing 384 events worldwide.
Which is to say, we’re not talking about pulling Sunday’s house show at JPJ.
It doesn’t seem likely that WWE will find its hand forced on this, in the form of economic sanctions, because we’re still talking about Saudi Arabia here. Honestly, if it’s any other country in the Middle East accused of luring a critic to an embassy and murdering him, then covering it up, there’d already be sanctions. Think: Iran.
Does the average pro wrestling fan care about WWE doing business with Saudi Arabia? Scanning the wrestling message boards this week, I’d say, no, emphatically. All the average fan cares is that they get to see Shawn Michaels and Triple H take on Undertaker and Kane, and A.J. Styles defend the WWE title against Daniel Bryan.
The wrestling demographic skews dramatically Republican, which is to say, you’re not going to see boycotts because WWE is cashing checks from a crown prince who effectively ordered the assassination of a Washington Post columnist.
I would wonder about the safety of the talents. I’m thinking if I’m booked to be part of this visit that I might find myself a little less than excited about getting on a plane headed toward Saudi Arabia in a couple of weeks.
There have already been so many restrictions placed on WWE by their Saudi business partners: no women, for instance, no Sami Zayn, because he is of Syrian descent, and Saudi-Syrian relations have been strained since the start of the Syrian civil war in 2012.
I’d be afraid if I looked at somebody or something the wrong way that the knock on the hotel-room door in the middle of the night might be the last thing I hear.
But, then, money.
Blood money though it may be, it looks real nice in the old bank account.
Column by Chris Graham
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