10 Cringeworthy Moments From WWE Greatest Royal Rumble

5. The Foreign Heel Angle

Jinder Mahal Jeff Hardy botch
WWE

The portrayal of certain characters as archetypal foreign heels is a huge part of professional wrestling and something WWE has extracted considerable mileage from over the years, whether it's with The Iron Sheik, Rusev or Jinder Mahal. Few were expecting such an angle to play a part at Greatest Royal Rumble, but they underestimated WWE's attraction to generating the cheapest of cheap heat.

WWE has run a number of tryouts in Saudi Arabia and devoted a segment of the show to introduce four shining stars from those tryouts. Their brief promos were interrupted by 205 Live competitor Ariya Daivari and his brother Shawn, who spent time in WWE as the manager of Muhammed Hassan and Great Khali. They waved an Iranian flag and delivered the usual foreign heel bluster, before the youngsters ran them out of the ring.

The awkwardness of this moment was partly down to how old-fashioned and obvious the segment felt, but also the very real tension between Iran and Saudi Arabia. The fans reacted hugely to the Daivari brothers, which is unsurprising given the fact there's no diplomatic relationship between Iran and Saudi Arabia after an attack on the Saudi embassy in Tehran in 2016, not to mention differences between the Sunni Islam of Saudi Arabia and the Shia teachings prominent in Iran. It's not the sort of tension that should be used for a WWE storyline in 2018.

 
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Contributor

Freelance film journalist and fan of professional wrestling. Usually found in a darkened screening room looking for an aisle seat and telling people to put away their mobile phones. Also known to do a bit of stand-up comedy, so I'm used to the occasional heckle.