As we have been covering over the last couple of days, there was an incident in Saudi Arabia on Thursday that saw a plane full of WWE Superstars and Employees detained and prohibited from taking off from the airport in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
WWE Superstars were kept on the tarmac with what was said to be “mechanical issues” before being removed from the plane and taken back to the hotel in Riyadh and kept in the country against their will, in what some Superstars felt was a “power play” from the Saudi Government. This all apparently came to be following WWE’s Crown Jewel PPV, where WWE Spanish Announcer Hugo Savinovich stated that Vince McMahon told production to cut the Saudi feed of the event. Hugo also said that this was due to the fact that Saudi Arabia still owes WWE somewhere between $300 and $500 million dollars for previous PPV Events held in the country.
In an update to he whole ordeal, a source with information close to the situation has told me that while in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Vince McMahon and other members of WWE’s staff were scheduled to have a private meeting with the Crown Prince Muhammad bin Salman and others to discuss their Middle East TV deal, as well as late payment issues and money owed to the company for previous shows held in the country. However, Crown Prince Muhammad bin Salman was said to have no-showed the meeting. This was said to have really “pissed” Vince McMahon off, and subsequently set things in motion.
There have been other reports which indicated that there was also some type of heated altercation involving Vince McMahon prior to his departure from Saudi Arabia following Crown Jewel.
A source also confirmed these reports to me, saying that “Vince McMahon “got into it” with some Saudis.” It was also said that the verbal argument was very heated, and “things got serious enough that Vince got the hell out of the country before The Crown Prince and his reps could respond to Vince McMahon “properly”… “
This falls in line with the earlier reports that Vince McMahon and 21 others were able to get out of the country on a private jet before the rest of the WWE Superstars and Staff could leave.
The whole situation is a huge mess, as many WWE Superstars have stated that they will not be going back to Saudi Arabia following the events of last week. However, it has been said that WWE does plan to return to the country once the money that is owed has been paid.
WWE also recently released their quarterly earnings report, which actually shows a difference of over $100 million dollars and cites late payment as the cause. You can see a tweet highlighting that part of WWE’s quarterly report below.
p. 45 of WWE’s latest 10-Qhttps://t.co/a3RGNoL6L7 pic.twitter.com/xr82mqg97c
— Wrestlenomics Radio (@wrestlenomics) November 3, 2019
We will keep you updated as more details and layers of this developing story between WWE and Saudi Arabia becomes available.
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