WWE Hall of Famer JBL appeared on an episode of Something to Wrestle With, where he discussed various topics, including the negative reactions to the announcement that WWE WrestleMania 43 will take place in Saudi Arabia.
JBL said, “I can’t judge motives, you know? So I don’t know their motive for why they’re doing it. Are they doing it for selfish reasons? And I say motives, I know why they’re doing it. Obviously they’re doing it because of the Saudi Arabia news. I don’t know if it’s a selfish motive, as, ‘Hey, I just want to be heard. I’m a spoiled brat.’ Or if, ‘I really believe this, and that’s my voice speaking out.’ So I don’t know where they’re coming from. I think it’s misguided. I don’t think — you know, obviously we’re not the moral police. And you say, ‘Well, you can’t do business with this country because of this, this, this.’ You can list that for pretty much any country, including ours, pretty easily. And so I get people want to have their voice heard. I 100% do not agree with that dissent at all.”
On younger fans in Saudi Arabia getting a chance to see it:
“I 100% agree. And when you had women over there for one of the first times in the Middle East countries, the fans at one point chanted, ‘This is change.’ And I think that’s important. I think it’s important to work with these countries. You know, we have historical precedents to show — at least in my opinion. And this is my opinion. There’s not a fact here, it’s my opinion. What works and what doesn’t with isolating countries. You know, 90 miles off the coast of Key West, there’s enough renewable stuff in Moa, the mines there, to furnish most of our renewable energy needs in America for a lot of the different elements. Most of it goes to China, because China is now with Cuba. So you look at what happened in Cuba specifically, not just the mine there, that’s something economic, that’s just something that could benefit what we need as far as our security. But you look at what happened in Cuba. For 65 years-plus, we put an embargo on these people because it is a swing vote in a swing state of Florida. And so we’re not realistic with it. All we have done is impoverish an entire country that’s 90 miles from Key West. We almost had a nuclear war [for] 13 days in the ’60s because of that. Then they go to Venezuela, then they move into China. Now you have the Chinese in Cuba, because we won’t deal with Cuba because it’s political. It’s a swing vote and a swing state. Same thing with North Korea.
When you isolate these countries and don’t deal with them at all, it has shown historically that nothing changes. And all you do is impoverish an entire nation, because your leaders are going to take their money anyway. They’re going to take it from the people. But look at what we did differently with Russia. Now, Russia still has issues. But Russia has a lot more rights than they did in the ’60s when we started the embark on Cuba. Certainly in the ’80s, when the Cold War, when the Iron Curtain fell. Same with China, we started opening up China. Do they have issues still? 100%/ But hace rights gotten a lot better? They’ve gotten remarkably better… When you send something like WWE over to Saudi Arabia — I don’t want to overstate what an entertainment company is. I think that’s something that opens up the world. And you see that when you see these kids eyes, you see that when you hear the fans chanting, ‘This is change.’ You see that when you see women wrestling, you. Are there a lot of things wrong? Yeah, 100% there are a lot of things wrong. A lot of things are wrong with our country, too. If you’re looking at our country from the outside in? If you’re the moral police, you might want to, not want to do business with us either. You know, I think there’s reasons to do things, and I think what WWE is doing is good.”
On WWE being paid millions of dollars to run the show there:
“I’d hate to be on the other side of negotiation from these guys in WWE. Because these guys can negotiate, man. It’s going to be huge, absolutely huge. But it’s worth it to the Kingdom to do that. It’s been worth it to them to get what they’ve gotten. From soccer to golf to all the things that they’ve done, they’ve got this sovereign wealth fund that they’re doing so much stuff with. And a lot of it has to do with becoming something different in the world than just a petrol monarchy. Which they’re not a monarchy, but essentially they are. They want to be something different, and so they’re willing to pay for this.
And it’s very similar to — you say overpaying. Not politically in any ways — Rupert Murdoch, when he got MLB and NFL in the ’90s, they said, ‘Man, he overpaid for those. He’ll never get that back,’ which he learned about from Jim Martin by the way in Australia. It made Fox, getting those TV contracts, I think it will do a lot for Saudi Arabia, getting all these entertainment properties to put them in a different place in the world, which is where they want to be. Now forget all the political stuff; this is a country that is trying to get away from the petrol-based economy and do something different. And I think they’ve got a legit plan here that certainly appears to be working.”
On the possibility of WWE holding two WrestleMania events in 2027:
“Short answer, yes. Will there be two WrestleManias? Yes. Now they may not call it the other one WrestleMania. It may be WrestlePalooza, or something else. When you’re in Saudi Arabia, now all these fans that come to Vegas, the fans that come over from Europe and have that incredible day the day after WrestleMania, when they hijack the show on Monday nights, they have so much fun. And it’s such a fun show to be a part of. And you have the whole weekend? That’s taking away from those fans because of Saudi Arabia for the most part. I think they’re going to replace that with something else. Now, whether they call that WrestleMania America version, or Wrestlemania, some other version? I don’t know. And they may make a new name for it. But I think they’re going to have a separate big weekend in the United States that’s not too close to it. Probably that fills in that void for what fans want to be a part of. So, yeah, I think there’s going to be a second one. I’m just not sure if it’s going to be called WrestleMania or if it’s going to be called something else.”
On the possibility of holding one night in Saudi Arabia and the other night in the U.S.:
“I could see that very easily, yeah. Obviously Vince tried that with WrestleMania II, but a different format, with the different cities. But yeah, I think that could work. And in the United States, that gives the fans that want to be there for a whole weekend an opportunity. And you can dress it up with so many different things. I mean, you could really be creative. You can take half the roster and take them to Saudi. You probably would bring some back, even though it’d be a pretty long flight, but you probably would bring some of them back. But it could be a pretty cool event. I think they’re going to figure out a way to make this work. Not to say think, I know they will.”
You can check out the complete podcast in the video below.
(H/T to 411Mania.com for transcribing the above quotes)
