The WWE has officially announced a return to Saudi Arabia on Friday, June 7th at the King Abdullah Sports City Stadium in Jeddah.
The company issued a release promoting Brock Lesnar, Roman Reigns, The Undertaker, Kofi Kingston, Braun Strowman, Seth Rollins, AJ Styles, and the returning Bill Goldberg.
Goldberg last wrestled against Lesnar at WrestleMania 33 in April 2017 and gave a farewell address the following night on Raw. He returned in 2018 to be inducted as the headliner of the Hall of Fame class in New Orleans.
The Undertaker is scheduled to do this show and then appear in Niagara Falls, Ontario that Sunday at the Niagara Falls Comic Convention.
This is WWE’s third event as part of their ten-year deal with the General Sports Authority. The deal has come under tremendous scrutiny, mostly focused on the company’s decision to go forward with last November’s Crown Jewel event in Riyadh one month after the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi at a Saudi Arabian consulate in Istanbul, Turkey.
It is an extremely lucrative deal for WWE, although terms of the deal are not disclosed by the company, citing confidentiality clauses in the deal.
There did appear to be legitimate backlash from their fanbase over the Crown Jewel show with an abnormally high decline in WWE Network subscribers during the fourth quarter of 2018. In the year-end earnings report, it listed 87,000 subscribers dropping the WWE Network, way above previous fourth quarter drops of 36,000 in 2017 and 41,000 in 2016.
