It was February 28, 2018 when WWE confirmed signing a ten-year deal with Saudi Arabia. A multi-million-per-show agreement in which WWE committed to presenting Premium Live Events in the kingdom for a decade.
Since 2018, a lot has changed—both in the country itself and in the way WWE events are organized, now carried out with greater ease and fluidity.
This week, the former co-president of WWE sat down for an interview on Jeff Jarrett’s podcast, where he revisited the signing of the deal. Former co-president George Barrios explains that it was he who personally made the trip to Saudi Arabia to sign the contract, since Michelle (the former co-president) could not attend and Vince McMahon did not want to go. He confirms that at the time he was indeed concerned for his safety:
“I remember that Michelle didn’t go because she is a woman, and that added a level of complexity at that time. It’s less of an issue today, but back then it was a problem. Vince McMahon, I don’t think he honestly wanted to go, so I said to myself: ‘Screw it. I’m going.’ It’s my turn… I like to think of myself as a street guy. I’ve fought a million times, I’m not afraid of anyone. Blah, blah, blah, blah, but I was a little worried, and I remember my wife Carol was a bit worried too… We made the decision: I’m going. We’re going. We’re going to close this deal.”
“… I’ve negotiated deals all over the globe. I’m very comfortable anywhere in the world, even when the customs are quite different… I’ve shared meals in China, in Thailand, in India, everywhere, you see?”
George Barrios then explains that everything was signed in a far-flung place with a prince in his underwear, smoking a shisha:
“It was the most unique business meeting I’ve ever attended. First, we were supposed to start at 7 p.m. We didn’t begin until around 11 p.m. Again, we’re talking a few weeks after the Jamal Khashoggi affair. We arrive by car at this private residence, and it’s pitch black. We get out of the car—guards everywhere, armed with rifles. We step into the meeting, and it’s almost like a man cave. It’s dark. There are five, six—probably six—two rows of three giant TVs, all streaming YouTube with a ton of different things on display. It’s like this giant man cave with one of the kingdom’s most influential princes, who is in his underwear with a shisha, and the meeting starts with him shouting at me because he thinks we’re being a bit too greedy with the contract terms, and I find myself in a nearby room with his number two to work the deal. It’s me and two or three of my guys—younger ones—and them in this small room with those very cushioned, very nice sofas, by the way, and guards keep coming in and out with little boxes. And there I think, ‘My God, I’m going to walk out of here in one of those boxes. I bet that’s how this ends,'” Barrios jokes.
“So, as I said, I like to pretend I’m fearless. I was a little uneasy. It was the most unique business negotiation of my life, but the truth is that while I was there, they were excellent partners. They can be a bit slow at times, taking their time to find their footing when organizing large-scale events… A lot of our team put in countless long nights, working on every aspect of the logistics, because you know how challenging it is to stage major events, and you’re doing it in a country that had never done it before. Their ticketing system at the time didn’t exist. So how do you get tickets into people’s hands, all that stuff? We had to handle it, but they were good partners. Overall, they were really very good partners.”
A contract that ultimately spawned a long and substantial relationship with Saudi Arabia. Even today, WWE has signed a new deal to host the first WrestleMania in the country, which will also be the first WrestleMania outside North America. Something unimaginable in 2018.
The full interview with George Barrios:
