United States Senators Pressuring WWE To Cancel Crown Jewel

This could be bad. Earlier this year, WWE announced a major deal with the Saudi Arabian government, which would bring WWE a fortune over the next ten years. This instantly raised a variety of questions, with many of them centered around Saudi Arabia’s international reputation. It felt like WWE would get by with the deal because it wouldn’t matter in the grand scheme of things. But then things have changed quite a bit in the last week.

According to IJR.com, several United States Senators are pressuring WWE to cancel the Crown Jewel event in Saudi Arabia due to the disappearance of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, who may have been murdered by Saudi officials. There is currently no proof that this was the case, but signs seem to point towards it being the case. Here are some quotes from some of the Senators:

Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) said: “This is a brazen assault on the freedom of the press and a slap in the face to the United States, if this murder occurred as it seems it did. I’d hope that they would be rethinking their relationship with the kingdom especially with respect to events coming up in the next weeks like [WWE Crown Jewel].”

Sen. Chris Coons (D-Del) said that WWE “should be taking a hard look” at its relationship Saudi Arabia in light of recent events, while Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) said “there should be a pause” in regards to the event.

Sen. Bob Menendez (D-NJ) added: “Private enterprise is private enterprise, different than a governmental entity, but because [Linda McMahon] is part of the president’s cabinet, it falls into the grey area where the administration really should give it some thought and maybe even prevail upon them not doing it.“

Could this be in danger?

Shawn Michaels coming out of retirement as D-Generation X reunite: Raw, Oct. 8, 2018

Opinion: I can’t imagine the show will actually be canceled or postponed or anything like that, but it’s going to take some serious courage on WWE’s part to go ahead with it given this atmosphere. There’s always a chance that things could change in either direction but at the moment, this is one of the most volatile situations that WWE has been in in a very long time.

Do you think the show will be canceled? Should the show take place? Let us know in the comments below.

Thomas Hall has been a wrestling fan for over thirty years and has seen over 50,000 wrestling matches. He has also been a wrestling reviewer since 2009 with over 5,000 full shows covered. You can find his work at kbwrestlingreviews.com, or check out his Amazon author page with 28 wrestling books. His latest book is the the Complete 2003 Smackdown Reviews.

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