On the latest episode of CarCast podcast, Goldberg recapped his time working Crown Jewel in Saudi Arabia. WWE working with the Saudi Arabian government on these large-scale international events has brought about a lot of controversy. Many of which concern Crown Prince Mohammad Bin Salman and his alleged involvement in regards to the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi.
AEW star Max Caster even took a shot at WWE during Crown Jewel calling it a “blood money show“. Goldberg addressed the negative reaction these shows have received and talked about the effect they have had on the region.
“It was different, man. It was my third, fourth time to Saudi,” Goldberg stated. “Every time we go, there’s seemingly a cloud of negativity, but I gotta tell you, from the first trip to this last trip, what the Crown Prince is trying to do and what he’s actually doing is moving that country ahead exponentially. I don’t want to say it’s ‘westernizing’, but it’s westernizing.
“It’s truly giving them some freedom and just the difference in women’s presentation from the WWE from the first show to this last show, I mean, they didn’t even let them wrestle on the first one. They didn’t even have to cover up most of the time on this last trip. Whether it’s Pitbull coming in the night before, whether it’s 700,000 people at this event, this festival that they had the night before, or us going in twice a year, I mean, they’re really doing some cutting edge stuff, and he’s bringing in entertainment throughout the world. It’s an honorable gesture, I believe, and I think it’s making the Middle East move in the right direction.”
Many large events from soccer tournaments to combat sports cards have been held in Saudi Arabia as the Crown Prince looks to open up the country to the western world. Goldberg spoke more on how WWE is a part of that effort.
“Formula 1’s going there,” Goldberg noted.” How can you get much bigger than that? They wanted [Tyson] Fury and Deontay Wilder there for the end of the trilogy. There’s nothing unattainable, financially, by him [MBS], in any respect, so the sky’s the limit, and hats off to him because we catch a lot of sh*t for going over there, but as far as I’m concerned, we’re part of a revolution. And I think it’s doing wonders for the, for the region.”
At Crown Jewel, Goldberg defeated Bobby Lashley in a no holds barred falls count anywhere match. He discussed the atmosphere these kinds of events have on the people.
“Going from no entertainment to what they’re going to now, it’s a pretty big jump, but the people even that weren’t associated with the event, just people walking around, it was a very positive experience, man,” Goldberg said. “It was completely different than the first time we went.”
