After three events, it’s safe to say WWE’s experiment in Saudi Arabia is a bit of a trainwreck.
So far the events have been critically derided in both the online and mainstream media, divisive among the company itself with multiple top stars refusing to make the trip or being banned from competing for a variety of reasons, and the show quality has been unforgivably abysmal, contributing to some major injuries. They even brought Hulk Hogan back, because the Saudi royal family only seems to like wrestlers from 20-40 years ago.
The money keeps coming in, though, so WWE’s going to keep doing the shows. While on the most recent trip, Triple H spoke to local outlet Ring Rules about WWE’s goals for the area, including whether or not we’d see an NXT TakeOver: Saudi Arabia. Whether that sounds like a good idea to you or not, you can hear his response below.
https://twitter.com/Ring_Rules/status/1137818427140255744
“Well, the goal is to be able to find talent here, recruit talent here, train talent and to be able to build something on the ground here. Now, whether that’s bringing NXT TakeOver here or whether that’s building a brand here, will yet to be determined. It just depends on how quickly we can find talent, and how quickly we can train them.”
I’m not sure how an NXT TakeOver would play with such a muted crowd reaction (or with multiple 50-year olds main-eventing), but it looks like a dedicated brand extension to the Middle East isn’t out of the question. What’s up first for TakeOver: Jeddah, Hogan vs. Flair?
