It’s no secret that there is some major controversy surrounding WWE and their Saudi Arabia trips. Former WWE stars Karl Anderson and Luke Gallows recently opened up about their trips overseas. Thanks to William Beltran of Superluchas.com for digging up some quotes from the podcast.
Karl Anderson began the discussion by saying the first time they flew to Saudi Arabia, it was a long commercial flight. Anderson admits that the show was good and all of the superstars were treated very well by Saudi Arabian officials. He said they never felt threatened or were not afraid of anything happening to them. Anderson said the second time they went over, things were different. Anderson said, “We were on a private flight, in Saudi Arabia the second time. We got to the airport and the flight was leaving at one in the morning, so we got there at 11 at night, a couple of hours early. Around midnight, we saw Paul Heyman, Brock Lesnar and Vince McMahon heading for planes. Vince stood up and just waved at us and said “thank you guys” and left on his plane. I don’t blame him, we all really wanted to go home, but he just left and left us there waiting.”
People started to question why the plane had not left yet when its scheduled flight time had went by. Anderson said, “At 3 in the morning they told us that the only guy who could get us out of there, who could fly the plane, wasn’t there, he needed eight hours of sleep. We saw more of these people arguing, it was kind of awkward, but then we all got on the plane and spent another hour there. All the guys were texting each other wondering what had happened, and also where to buy some alcohol.”
Time continued to pass and it was now 9:00 in the morning. Anderson said, “I asked Michael Hayes if we were in a kind of hostage situation because this was so weird. And he was shocked and said, ‘Oh, I don’t know!’ But he said it in a way that made me think he did know something. We started to hear from crew people, who heard from a cameraman, that he heard Vince on the headphones telling someone to cut the signal. But we didn’t hear anything from that discussion and these people probably never admit they said that. In the end they told us there was a mechanical problem and we went to sleep at a hotel, at 11 they took us to the hotels, and then we didn’t go out until 4 in the morning the other day.”
WWE was not prepared to put staff in a hotel so the crew had to ride around Saudi Arabia until they found an open hotel that could service 120 people. Gallows reiterated to listeners that there was indeed no fear felt from superstars. He said, “Listen, we were never afraid. And I know about fear, because they have pointed a gun at my face in a third world country, but what happened in Saudi Arabia was nothing that made us feel afraid. There were no weapons in Saudi Arabia … Well, yes, there were armed soldiers at the airport, but it was not as if they were near the plane or looking out the windows.”
Anderson ended the discussion by saying that even though there was no fear, there was indeed serious tension. “Actually there was a lot of tension because they didn’t give us answers for hours, they didn’t say anything for hours and the boys started to get very nervous. But the money was fantastic and I was happy. They didn’t put weapons on our heads or anything so crazy, beyond something a little political. I tweeted that I wouldn’t go back to Saudi Arabia and I came back as a little bitch! So…”
You can listen to the entire podcast, that covers much more, below.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n5KM97k_ch0
