During a live stream on his Mixer account (which you can see below), AJ Styles gave details on what he says happened in Saudi Arabia after the WWE Crown Jewel show.
Here are the bullet points of what he said on the stream:
- The crew was supposed to leave after the show and they weren’t allowed to board the plane.
- Styles says he wasn’t real sure what the problem was but heard that there was a fuel truck in the way and the guy who drove the fuel truck had left to go home. Styles acknowledges that this doesn’t make much sense.
- Styles said they were told that there were some paperwork issues and then after after 4-5 hours they were allowed to get on the plane and then there was something wrong with the fuel.
- Styles said he talked to the pilot during the flight when they were in the air and the pilot said there was a problem and the mechanical issues were real.
- Styles said the delays caused the pilots to time out so they couldn’t fly the plane that day.
- Styles said the wrestlers had to go to the hotel. He says there were no guns or anything like that.
- Styles said he had the best sleep of his life in the hotel. He says the story was “almost blown up to as if we were on the verge of being killed. That wasn’t the case.”
- Styles said he has no idea what happened with the Crown Prince but “that’s not my job to say anything.” Styles said he was angry about missing his son’s wrestling match.
- Styles said “we’ll find out as we go along why things happened or we won’t. I don’t know what’s gonna happen going forward. It’s gonna be what it’s gonna be.”
- Styles said he is not going to throw WWE under the bus because he is committed to making the best product that he can. He said there are a lot of good people in WWE and he doesn’t want to make them look bad.
- Styles said he will not say more until he knows more. He said he won’t say anything negative “and If I did find out and I was offended, I would go to the source. Believe me on that one.”
As noted earlier, Dave Meltzer was told by one wrestler that he believed the mechanical issues were real. However, most of the wrestlers on the plane did not buy the story and wondered why another flight wasn’t booked. There was also a lot of unhappiness about Vince McMahon and his staff leaving the talent in the country. The feeling among many is that McMahon should have stayed with the talent until their plane took off.
The story that was going around amongst the wrestlers was that the Saudi Crown Prince owed Vince McMahon money for the last show they ran in the country in June. The money owed, $60 million, was not included on the last quarterly earnings report and George Barrios avoided talking about their Middle East TV deal and Saudi Arabia on the recent investor conference call. There was concern among stockholders about WWE not being able to secure a new TV deal in India and the Middle East.
The belief among the wrestlers is that McMahon cut off the live Crown Jewel feed from airing in Saudi Arabia. Something was worked out and the show did air but on delay 40 minutes after it was supposed to start airing but many wrestlers believe the Crown Prince retaliated by causing delays to the flight out of Saudi Arabia.
You can watch AJ Styles talk about the Saudi Arabis issues in the video below from his Mixer stream.
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