WWE Roundtable: Examining the Saudi Arabia situation

Kevin: I’ve tried looking up the tweets we were sent before The Greatest Royal Rumble, but I’m having trouble finding them or any opinions from people from Saudi Arabia. But it’s worth noting that the sample size will be small and the most oppressed voices are unlikely to be heard by people in other countries.

I also just can’t get past the fact that WWE is happily taking money from Saudi Arabia and still ran the show despite their [rumored and alleged] murder of Jamal Khashoggi. It’s so disgusting and embarrassing, and it honestly feels like a boycott would be the only response to this.

What else can be done? How can a country say that they are bringing in WWE “for change” and then go ahead and [allegedly] murder a journalist? How can they claim they want to change their own country when they clearly have the power to do so and instead have one of the worst human right’s records in the world? It’s all lies, and it is so shameful that there are people who lap up WWE’s PR on this instead of standing firm.

I truly feel for the people there and want them to be entertained since they do love wrestling, but this just feels like it’s too much. It feels like doing business with that regime is basically being OK with what they are doing to their own people.

Tom:  There are a mirror of opinions here in mine on a lot of matters, but what I struggle to see is the solution. The problems have been highlighted until the end of time but nobody is offering an actual solution.

As regards to taking money from Saudi Arabia, I’d ask why we’re asking more from WWE than most are asking from their own governments. Yes, we should be actively condemning a lot of activities that the Saudi Arabian government are implicated in, but as long as both the US and the UK are selling arms to Saudi Arabia, a lot of people are complicit in voting for the governments that choose to do so.

Laura: Yup, this.