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This week's edition of the WWE Monday evening flagship has announced a major development expected for weeks: after eight and a half years of retirement, Shawn Michaels really returned to the ring in a few weeks, during the ceremony of the jewels of the WWE in Saudi Arabia. For years, Michaels has been striving to make retirement a reality, but it's easy to see how it has changed.
Crown Jewel is the second WWE event in 10 years with the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. The regime of Crown Prince Mohammad Bin Salman is said to have, according to Wrestling Observer Information Bulletin Editor-in-chief Dave Meltzer has called for all kinds of legends for their concerts, including those who have died. If you consider that the WWE financial reports seem to indicate – via a post for "other" – that the first issue, The Greatest Royal Rumble in Jeddah, cost the Saudis nearly $ 50 million, it is not difficult to deduce that Michaels has offer that he could not refuse. He is a sports legend and would surely have been able to visit the major lucrative events of WrestleMania. It pays better.
As this is a professional fight, it will probably not surprise you that Michaels becomes a total hypocrite. For years, he has pledged not to return for a simple gain. "If I do something, I want to devote 100% of my time to it and make it good." Michaels told Sam Roberts on his podcast in January 2017. "I know the reasons I struggled. [and] why I do not And look, I would do it just for money now and I do not want to do that! "
He had also suggested in an interview broadcast on WWE Network aired for the first time in 2014 that his farewell to WrestleMania 26, from a classic match with The Undertaker, was simply a good start. "That's why it's always been so easy for me not to want to come back, not to do it again," he said. "I think I have never done something perfect in my life. But I am at least wise enough to know that these things I have done should not be disturbed. "It is only after the announcement of the agreement with Saudi Arabia that Michaels publicly changed his melody, informing Sky Sports just days after the first broadcast. 10 years of contract, he could very well make a unique comeback, preferably teaming with Triple H in a match in which "I can just do some ribs at the fork and have a good time".
If you follow the world news, you realize that returning to the ring for a match in Saudi Arabia is not a trivial matter. The first show of the Saudi partnership, the April Greatest Royal Rumble, was essentially a nonstop festival. infomercial propaganda for the repressive kingdom; Even by WWE standards, these programs pose significant ethical challenges. The return of Michaels was staged Saturday, coincidentally, at another stadium show organized in partnership with a foreign government – the Super Showdown event in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. Saturday was the same day as the Turkish police, talking to outlets like the Washington Post in the background, they learned that they knew that the Saudi government, possibly under the command of Mohammed bin Salman, had attracted dissident journalist and US resident Jamal Khashoggi to the Saudi consulate in Istanbul for that they can murder and dismember it.
WWE has not responded to a request for comment on the impact of Khashoggi's restitution / assassination on his partnership with Saudi Arabia. At the time of writing this article, neither ESPN nor Bristol-Myers Squibb Company, who has teamed up to give WWE its "League Humanitarian Leadership Award" at Sports Humanitarian Awards during ESPY Week. in July. The same goes for the Mayor's office in Knox County, Tennessee, which is the workplace of Mayor Glenn Jacobs, who will be competing against Michaels in Saudi Arabia in his gimmick "Demon Kane". On Monday, a few hours before WWE announced the match, Jacobs' office chose not to confirm the trip to the local media.
For what it's worth, the WWE issued a press release a few weeks ago – it does not appear on their company's website and has apparently only been sent to the local county media. Knox – stating that they were donating $ 100,000 to the Knoxville Public Safety Foundation, a charity dedicated to first responders, at Jacobs' request "for thanks" for his upcoming appearances. The mayor's office and WWE did not respond to requests for clarification as to whether the donation replaced or not the payment to Jacobs for his participation in the Saudi program. A statement issued Thursday night by WWE said only "we are currently monitoring the situation".
Khashoggi's story seems to be getting warmer by the hour, despite some grisly attempts by the Trump White House to dismiss the murder as a cost, which means that WWE could very well end up in a difficult situation sooner only late. The strength of the pressure on companies – even those that do not produce pure propaganda like that of the WWE – depends on reducing the pressure on companies to get out of Saudi Arabia and the arsonist. Khashoggi's story. For the WWE, however, the decisive factor might be whether promotion is in the spotlight for its relations with the kingdom.
WWE is much more of a mainstream entertainment company in terms of doing business and integrating into popular culture than it was at another time in its existence, but there are still elements of "this is only false professional struggle". . This is by no means exculpatory, but the caricature of WWE means that its actions are generally perceived and discussed in an abstract way, which will isolate it from criticism. If a company of the same size, sports or leisure, had launched in propaganda for Saudi Arabia in April and had subsequently raised death threats for at least one wrestler and the Al-Qaeda's anger, that would probably have been much more serious than that. That was when the WWE did it. Right now, it does not look like the State Department or anyone else in the US government is going to force the hand to WWE. It will be up to the promotion to decide if all of this is worth it.
It turns out that the company has planned a promising distraction the same week as Crown Jewel. This would be Evolution, an all-female show at NYCB Live (the former Nassau Coliseum) in Uniondale, NY. After the Greatest Royal Rumble, fan complaints focused mainly on the fact that the Saudi government did not allow broadcasts, both because it was discriminatory and because these wrestlers were financially penalized. (It has been reported that Syrian-Canadian wrestler Sami Zayn was also blocked.) For all the larger potential problems of the Saudi partnership, this argument holds: the most naively hypocritical aspect of the first Saudi broadcast of WWE was his treatment of women, who were excluded from the show and banned from attending as fans, except they are accompanied by male guardians.
A few days later, the wrestling circles suggested that the women's pay-per-view program could be an acceptable counterweight to the Saudi program. Nobody knows exactly when the WWE decided to run with Evolution (the event had been announced less than two weeks before its announcement), but the schedule of broadcasts, spaced just five days away, bodes well for the future. they were meant to be understood. relationship with each other. Cynical breathtaking, even by WWE standards, but it's easy to see how it could work. WWE-friendly media – those to which WWE posts announcements about Hall of Fame inductees and new entrants to Mae Young Classic – should lavish praise on revolutionary evolution and tie WWE to paid propaganda. favor of a murdered regime an American resident.
The scandal and shame of trade relations with the Saudi regime aside, it's not like the WWE has any other reason to withdraw from Crown Jewel. WWE has moved the show from the 68,000-seat King Fahd International Stadium to the 25,000-seat King Saud University Stadium in recent weeks; an article published Monday on the website of the Saudi General Sports Authority lists the smaller site. Anyway, this type of change almost always means low ticket sales in wrestling – doubly odd since the tickets for the Greatest Royal Rumble were priced to be moved and that the GSA would also give a lot – albeit it There are also security issues and the possibility of a gaffe as a double booking room. All three could provide coverage for eventual cancellation, but this is, after all, a place reserved for the government, and the tickets are still not on sale. Beyond the fetishes of WWE's double secret and its host country, it's hard to know what's going on here.
However, we can say with some confidence: Whatever reason WWE may have for canceling Crown Jewel, it is unlikely to be the real reason. If WWE withdraws from the series, I hope you will join me in celebrating WWE's true commitment to gender equality at Evolution, which will be broadcast live on the WWE network, at the cost of $ 9.99 only.
This message has been updated to include the WWE Public Statement.
David Bixenspan is a freelance writer from Brooklyn, NY, who co-hosts the Between The Sheets podcast every Monday at BetweenTheSheetsPod.com and everywhere else where podcasts are available. You can follow him on Twitter at @davidbix and see his portfolio at Clippings.me/davidbix.
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