Former Intercontinental Champion Comments On Being Banned From WWE’s Saudi Arabia PPVs

By AG

Posted on September 25, 2020

• ON THIS DAY IN NWA HISTORY (September 24, 1988) – NWA Pro

On this day in 1988, Jim Crockett Promotions aired an episode of their weekly TV show ‘NWA Pro’.

This episode featured pre-taped matches, interviews & storyline segments on the road to ‘Starrcade 1988’.

The card can be found below:

The Russian Assassins vs. Itallion Stallion/John Savage

Ivan Koloff vs. Tony Suber

Midnight Express vs. Larry Stevens/David Isley

Kevin Sullivan vs. George South

Barry Windham vs. Bob Emory

• Former Intercontinental Champion Comments On Being Banned From WWE’s Saudi Arabia PPVs

While speaking to POST Wrestling, former Intercontinental Champion Sami Zayn discussed him not being allowed to travel to Saudi Arabia and performing there at WWE events due to his Syrian roots.

Below is what he said:

“I don’t know. I don’t know the specifics on this. To this day I didn’t really ask because I wasn’t really keen on going anyway.

But WWE did a thing, a partnership sort of or signed some sort of deal to put on these shows in Saudi Arabia for I don’t know, what? 10 Years or something like that, and I just wasn’t invited to go and I never really dug into it too much because I wasn’t keen on going to begin with, but I would like to discuss that for a moment because there is a certain amount…there’s a certain amount of…what’s the word I’m looking for here?

You know, it became very popular, very easy to say, ‘Well you shouldn’t go to this country because they do these awful things’ and I understand it and I agree and if I was asked to perform in Israel, I wouldn’t, right? But at the same time, I perform in the United States, you know what I mean? And I live in the United States. So there’s that sort of dissonance to get your head around a little bit. So I don’t know, I don’t know. I don’t know how I feel about all of that.”