WWE Wrestlers No Longer Get Bonuses For Wrestling In Saudi Arabia (WWE News)
There are no extra financial incentives for WWE talent heading to Saudi Arabia.
There's been a lot of talk about whether or not WWE might change the location for Night Of Champions 2025 last minute or even cancel the event outright altogether. Production employees travelling out early to set up for the PLE got stranded in Qatar, but they've since been able to make their way through to Saudi Arabia and start dressing up Riyadh's Kingdom Arena for the weekend.
Amidst all of this news, Fightful Select has reported that WWE talent are no longer given bonuses for agreeing to appear on Saudi Arabian cards. Those dates are firmly locked into their contracts rather than being semi-optional, and there "is not an additional financial incentive for the talent on [this] trip that [Fightful have] heard of".
In other words, these Saudi shows are being treated like any other dates on the regular schedule - WWE's roster is expected to travel as and when required. Previously, wrestlers such as Sami Zayn, Daniel Bryan, Kevin Owens, Aleister Black and others had refused to work shows in Saudi Arabia.
Night Of Champions will take place in Riyadh at time of writing. So, unless something dramatic happens, the city's Kingdom Arena will host an episode of SmackDown on Friday night then a full scale WWE supershow just 24 hours later.
WWE Roster Set For 13th Saudi PLE
In total, NOC 2025 is the 13th major PLE that WWE has put on in Saudi Arabia. They first travelled to the country for house shows in 2014, 2015 and 2016 before then-boss Vince McMahon brokered a lengthy (and lucrative) partnership with the Saudi General Sports Authority (which was renamed the Ministry Of Sport in 2020) in 2018.
A so-called Greatest Royal Rumble was held in Jeddah on 27 April that year, and the promotion has returned to Saudi pretty regularly ever since. For a while, shows like Crown Jewel and Super ShowDown seemed to operate quasi-separately from the rest of the year's scheduling, but that's no longer the case.
In fact, WWE has taken staple events such as Elimination Chamber to Saudi, and they've got a proper Royal Rumble show lined up for January 2026 in Riyadh as well.