Report: How Endeavor Buying WWE Affects Saudi Arabia Plans

WWE

WWE signed a multi-year deal with Saudi Arabia in 2018, expanding its partnership in 2019 to bring them two large-scale events a year.

With WWE being purchased by Endeavor, merging them with UFC, details of the future for the Saudi Arabia deal have been touched upon.

Writing in the current Wrestling Observer Newsletter (subscription required), Dave Meltzer reports:

“As far as the relationship with Saudi Arabia goes, given that (Ari) Emanuel and Endeavor pulled out of their business relationships with Saudi Arabia years ago after the murder of reporter Jamal Khashoggi, the belief from WWE is that current deal will continue through the terms of the current contract which was for 20 events in total.

“Obviously Saudi Arabia would have been interested in a similar UFC deal, and Emanuel never made such a deal.

“As time goes by and more and more entities are back doing business, Emanuel could soften his stance and this WWE deal could open the door for talks that would lead to a similar UFC deal, although UFC already works with Abu Dhabi.

“When this contract expires, it would be up to Emanuel to decide whether or not to continue it and that isn’t a decision that would be made until around 2028 and many things can change in the interim.”

The murder of Jamal Khashoggi in October 2018 led to condemnation from the West towards Saudi Arabia and criticism of WWE’s decision to continue to do business with them.

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• endeavor
• saudi arabia
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