WWE made the controversial decision on Thursday morning to go ahead with the plans for the Crown Jewel event in Saudi Arabia. WWE issued a statement, saying that they have “decided to uphold its contractual obligations to the General Sports Authority and stage the event.”
Since the news broke, many people have voiced their opinions on if WWE made the right decision. This includes some members of the mainstream media.
On his show, ESPN’s Dan Le Batard ripped into WWE for taking Saudi Arabia’s “blood money”. Here is what he said (h/t to Fightful):
“Did you see that WWE is still going to Saudi Arabia? What a bad decision that is. But, it’s the sewer and the sewer is going to behave like the sewer. There’s a lot of money in Saudi Arabia, so much money, so wrestling is going back to Saudi Arabia as we wonder whether Saudi Arabia kills journalists with bone saws.
It’s not a hard statement to make. You’re usually not this overt about ‘We’ll take your money even though you’re being investigated for killing a journalist with a bone saw.’ We’re usually not quite that overt like, ‘Yeah, we’ll take your money, your blood money, no matter what.'”
He added:
“Don’t they have people who are refusing to partake even though Vince McMahon runs something of a dictatorship?”
On a related note, here was WWE’s response to the reports of John Cena and Daniel Bryan refusing to participate in the event.