Vince McMahon says WWE is popular all over the world, even in areas that don’t share the same beliefs as the Western world.
Vince McMahon was a guest on The Pat McAfee Show on Thursday and was asked about WWE’s presence in Saudi Arabia and how he knew the company’s events would succeed in the country. Vince said that WWE is popular around the world, noting that WWE is a part of the Western culture that the world loves, and it could fit in anywhere.
“Well, Saudis are no different than any other people, WWE fans all over the world,” McMahon said, before McAfee asked how they found out there was such a desire for WWE in the nation. “I’ve known for years, we’ve had a presence over there for years. There’s no place in the world we don’t have a presence. So, Saudi fans are really, really enthusiastic like they are everywhere else. It was an opportunity for the audience.
“People love Western culture all over the world. They don’t love our government, but they love Western culture. And our form of entertainment, with WWE fits into everything. It’s larger than life, it fits everything imaginable. [They react] like ‘Oh my God!’ and to the spectacle of it. It fits in everywhere and we translate it in 40 languages or something like that,” McMahon noted, “but even if there’s just English, you get it as a fan.”
Vince continued, referencing the cultural differences in Saudi Arabia compared to how things are domestically. He said that some people believe the Western way is “the” way, but at some point, you need to respect other cultures.
“We’ve always been popular everywhere, Saudi is no different and people are people. Cultures are cultures and you have to respect that. Just because we as Americans [believe] ‘this is the way we should do this’, [believe] that the whole world should be like us and ‘we know the way’ and anything else is just not the right way … c’mon. Culture’s been around thousands of years, long before us.”
WWE entered a live event partnership with the Saudi General Entertainment Authority that now runs through 2027. The February 2022 WWE Elimination Chamber event was the seventh under WWE’s deal, which includes two large-scale events to be held in Saudi Arabia every year through 2027.
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