CHAOS Surrounds WWE's Next Saudi Arabia Pay-Per-View
Friday Night Heat.
If one word accurately describes WWE's relationship with the Saudi Arabia General Sports Authority, it is "heat".
There was major external heat on WWE for signing a deal for what is perceived, with very little cynicism or justifiable counter-argument, as a propaganda drive. The murder and dismemberment of dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi, on the eve of November 2018's Crown Jewel, intensified the outrage. At Crown Jewel, the literal temperature was so scorching that Kane's mask and wig fell off, in an hilarious moment of levity. At this year's Super Show-Down, the effects of the heat were significantly less amusing; the ageing, rusty Goldberg and Undertaker skirted with serious injury by dropping each other on their heads.
The thermostat keeps on rising.
The GSA sets the dates for these shows. The original date, of November 1, was rescheduled to an undetermined date. To accommodate the GSA, WWE rearranged its domestic TV schedule, cancelled several UK dates, and cancelled an entire tour of Italy. And now, per this week's Wrestling Observer Newsletter, "it’s back to the old date".
You've probably heard the expression "killing the town". WWE has potentially killed an entire country with this fiasco in Yemen. Sorry, that's Saudi Arabia. Italy.
WWE might have killed Italy.
Meltzer also ran through the permutations of the schedule:
"So now it’s back to a situation where there is going to be a PPV on a Friday afternoon, and a few hours later there will be a live Smackdown from the Prudential Center in Newark, unless the decision is made to tape Smackdown that Monday or move the Newark show to Tuesday that week and tape Smackdown ahead of time."
Welcome everybody, to SmackDown Taped!