JR on Saudi Arabia: “if it’s safe and the talents can go earn money that they need”
On a recent episode of his podcast, The Ross Report, Jim Ross talked about how the Greatest Royal Rumble event that he was apart of was one of the BIGGEST WWE paydays of his life and gave his thoughts on WWE running their shows in Saudi Arabia.
“One of my biggest paydays in my history of working for Vince [McMahon] was making a trip to Saudi Arabia.” Ross admitted, “I got paid very, very well. And much more than a former guy doing the payoffs than I would have paid myself. And if it affected me in that regard, how many other people that were there, some of them for days and weeks, even more, how many of them did it affect in a positive way? So I’m not going to be the guy to get up and talk about things that I don’t quite understand. I know what I believe, but I also don’t want to take any money out of a wrestler’s pocket and takes care of their family. That [has] always been my pet peeve. Take care of the talent and if the talent don’t want to go, they shouldn’t go and they won’t have to go. That’s what I think about this Saudi thing. There’s no right answer, guys. There really isn’t, I don’t think. I’ve heard both sides of the argument and both sides can make very good points that I can say, ‘yeah, I can see that. Yeah, I can see that too.’ But I don’t have the right answer apparently. But I have an answer for me. My answer is, if it’s safe and the talents can go earn money that they need. Look, Christmas is coming! Think of these things as simple as it may be. ‘Oh, listen, J.R. had this reason that [WWE] should go to Saudi because it’s near Christmas. What an idiot! What an idiot!’ Okay, maybe I am an idiot, but the bottom line is I would move cautiously, WWE. I would try to make sure that everything is as safe as it humanly possibly could be. Nobody would go if they didn’t want to go and I would divvy that money up like you did before, in a very fair, equitable way because it’s new money. It’s significant new money. It’s not like running a house show in Muskogee [Oklahoma] next week. This is big time money for a lot of guys, some of them are looking at it like they have less paydays left than they have earned previously. So that’s my thoughts on Saudi.”
(The Spotlight)
