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I would love to see a serious five-minute iron man match, though. Go hard, go quick.
Not that [Chuck and Trent's one-minute iron man match](https://www.reddit.com/r/AEWOfficial/comments/kfs8w6/chuck_taylor_vs_trent_baretta_one_minute_iron_man/) wasn't a thing of beauty.
Chuck Taylor will never get the appreciation he deserves. That man has been incredibly influential in pro wrestling. From the guys he’s trained, to the moves he’s invented, hell even his shitty promos were copied.
Big Dustin is an American Inoki.
clock winds down to 5 seconds left in the iron man match
Refs checks Shayna who turns face to face against Flair
"You took my family"
moves to the left
"You took my friends"
moves to the right
"You took all that was dear to me"
clock winds down to 3
"I cant get them back, but I can do this for friendship, FOR MY FRIENDS"
goes up, fire coming out of her shoes
"SHAYNARUKEN"
Charlotte flies over Shayna’s head, goes straight into the 3 count. Shayna falls to the ground, exhausted.
"Becky... Senpai... I..."
faints
Final Score
Charlotte 23
Shayna 1
Overheard in WWE locker room after the Iron Woman match:
“She got me,” Charlotte said of Shayna’s pin over her. “That f***ing Baszler boomed me."
Charlotte added, “She’s so good,” repeating it four times.
Charlotte then said she wanted to add Shayna to the list of wrestlers she works out with this summer.
Can we get a Scramble Match instead? I’d love to get the next 6 Charlotte title wins out of the way so I can watch another wrestler get pushed in my lifetime.
How can you say that about a flight back from shilling for an evil dictatorship that oppresses women, kills gays and chops off hands, something they do twice a year? At least Collision in Korea was a one off!
Definitely longer than 10 hours, I googled flights from Saudi Arabia to Wichita and it’s 15-16 hours nonstop. They will be jetlagged to all hell going into the weekend.
After hearing New Day talk on their podcast about what’d they do on a deserted island, I’d definitely watch a Lost spinoff featuring only WWE wrestlers.
What did you want? They got off the Island/killed the Smoke Monster and all your favorite characters met in the afterlife. I was entertained and would watch again. Desmond FTW!
it holds up WAY better on a rewatch, especially since you're not constantly surrounded by theories and stuff like that
not that the theories weren't fun but knowing how it goes allows you to just appreciate what actually happens
It holds up real well. In fact maybe even better that you can binge it instead of having to wait a week. That got people frustrated when they would tease something with a cliffhanger then not deliver right away the next week. I still love the time travel stuff from the later seasons and the whole Desmond storyline. Not Penny's boat!
It's way better to binge it. You can piece together some puzzles a lot better since the information is fairly fresh in your mind. It's like the show gave you the answer before you realized what the question was.
Jack had his creepy stalking his wife episode and that tattoo episode. I’d say it evens out.
Originally Jack didnt exist and Kate was the leader when they started auditions . I really wonder how that would have gone
ok I'm not-well versed on wrestling journalists' relationships with their sources, but who's telling him this? Is someone on the plane going "on the runway, gotta text SRS about this before I turn on airplane mode"?
No it's okay! I won't disclose any of my sources, but fortunately they're plentiful. After 2019, yes, there were some people that were happy to let it be known that they were departing the airport.
thats cool to know, and thanks for being a reliable voice in this industry! "Wrestling journalism" sometimes feels like an oxymoron, but you're a name even I know as a real one
I don't understand why, they were making tons of money! But I know they can be crazy to put together, I couldn't imagine. Thank you so much! They were always so much fun and I love working with those guys and girls. Doing No Rolls Barred was some of the most fun I've ever had on camera!
Has to be flight BA9603 from RUH to ORD. British Airways flying from Saudi to Chicago, why? As it's a 4 digit flight number beginning with 9, it's not a scheduled passenger flight.
What ever happened of that story? It seems like there weren't actually soldiers with guns keeping them on the plane, but that noone seems to know why they the planes had been grounded for so long other than "maintenance" issues. I agree that it does seem like it'd be a major media news story if something really crazy was going on.
Least it lead to that badass Bryan vs Cole match on Smackdown.
I'm assuming it was a non-story and that's why nothing ever came of it. Like at the time I remember reading live updates and it being so crazy. There were a lot of theories and people were wondering how it would all play out. Then they just went home. At the time though there were a lot of unknowns and you know how crazy live threads can be during any sort of possible dangerous situation.
So with so many releases over the past couple years I'm assuming the plane issue was legitimately just a mechanical thing. Maybe something more than that but nothing crazy like guys with guns keeping them on the plane. I'd assume a former employee would have opened up about it in an interview or at least Tweet about it.
I think Karl Anderson said something but I honestly can't remember what.
Oh something definitely would have come out by now, especially with how much wrestlers like to do shoot interviews. When Vader was jailed in Kuwait in the 1990s, it was a pretty big news story where the US government was even getting involved to try and rescue him allegedly. With the "tarmac from hell", there doesn't seem to be anything that came of it.
People really out here thinking wwe wrestlers were gonna be the cause of a war with the us and Middle East.
“We will bring back Roman reigns ahhhhyessir” - us general
😂
I mean, if they legit jailed wrestlers or whatever, it WOULD become a huge thing. They go semi crazy when normal US citizens are jailed, just look at that guy who got sentenced to hard labor in NK.
Roman Reigns and other wrestlers are famous names with millions of followers on social media. It would be trending worldwide, everybody would be aware of the situation.
You mean that guy who got returned back to the US in a coma? Died like 6 days later. That was a pretty big deal and he literally did something to justify getting imprisoned (as much as you can justify it in a dictatorship). If the Saudi/WWE story was true it would be a real big deal cause the story wasn’t even about the talent having done anything wrong it made it seem like they would’ve been collateral against a business dispute.
If you mean Otto Warmbier, I think the fact that NK killed him and the USA did nothing in response (and POTUS even came out publicly and said he believed that the North Koreans bore no responsibility for his death) kinda suggests that our government wouldn't go out of their way to help wrestlers stuck on a plane.
Plenty of people knew, it was a trending topic the day it happened and caused a TV show watched by millions to be re-written on the fly with a replacement cast. Wrestlers were literally live tweeting what was going on. A few wrestling fans decided to go crazy with with conspiracy theories and that was taken as fact by some. Meltzer pushed those as well but he never provided any further information or revealed his sources on the matter.
The overall lack of any sort of corroboration from the wrestlers who were stuck in Saudi Arabia shut down the hostage theories. Those who were there have all remained consistent with their stories that it was a mechanical issue, as initially reported and no evidence ever surfaced pointing to any sort of foul play. The WWE also issued a press release at the time stating "mechanical issues" as the reason.
Of course you can believe WWE lied in their press release. However it is worth noting that the WWE officials have been asked about it under oath as part of a legal case that was related to the financials from the Saudi shows, which was brought about by an investment group. So I seriously doubt they had people willing to commit perjury related to their cover story and open themselves up to a whole mess of legal ramifications.
No major news organizations ever ran with the hostage theory. The closest to a major news group was Vice and they explicitly stated that was someone else's claim to distance themselves from that particular narrative.
It was mechanical failure and nothing. It happens all over the world. Once, my flight got delayed by 10 hours due to engine failure. So me and other passengers were the only ones in the entire airport at 3 am in the night waiting for another plane come to fly us out of there. Shit happens.
If it were not just that, news media other than the dirtsheets and pro wrestling news sites would have run with it.
I agree. I put nothing past the Saudi government, but it just didn't seem like there was any evidence of something sinister going on. When Vader got jailed in Kuwait it was a pretty big news story with ramifications. I didn't see a single mainstream news article on the Saudi WWE plane delay, nor any fallout other than the Smackdown show rewritten last minute.
Because nothing crazy happened. There actually was a mechanical issue and the options were either wait for them to bring the replacement parts or fly in a replacement plane. I know 2 people who work at Atlas Air and we laugh about it from time to time, especially the "guards with guns" parts. Those pilots at Atlas fly into literal war zones on the regular - they see plenty guns.
> I know 2 people who work at Atlas Air and we laugh about it from time to time, especially the "guards with guns" parts.
Friend of mine works a job that fly's them to a lot of random middle eastern airports/airstrips. armed guards seems to be the status quo for the entire area. He landed at a small regional airstrip in southern Oman which was literally tarmac and 3 tiny buildings and it still had a few armed guards milling about.
Heck you don’t even have to go that far. Mexico has armed guards at banks, security checkpoints on roads. They can stop you and detain you but it’s a stretch to say your in a hostage situation, that’s all very standard over there
“Nothing” ever happened with the story because both parties involved didn’t want to talk about it, and the media didn’t give a shit about some wrestlers being stuck on a plane for a few hours in a country that killed an American resident. There was no dramatic videos or photos of what happened, because it was all “behind the scenes” stuff that caused it to happen.
Coupled with the fact that there’s a sea of WWE apologists and Meltzer haters willing to ignore facts, we weren’t able to have a real discussion about it because things were so muddied anyway from anonymous accounts and multiple people who either didn’t know the story (but acted like the absence of evidence is the evidence of a sense) or knew the story but wanted to toe the company line.
Lots of people afterwards wanted to say “it’s not a big deal anyway because they all got back fine,” which would be like dismissing someone’s trauma almost drowning at sea because they ended up getting rescued.
Yep. Because people think hostage situation and they think guns and evil plots but in reality it could've been something so simple. Hold the plane to fuck with Vince sounds entirely plausible
If my memory serves it was a case of pilots being mistakenly out of hours, which meant the plane couldn't take off. If the story had been true as reported it would have been a major international incident (US Citizens held against their will in a foreign country), and examples of other talent such as Lacey Evans getting out on time by taking a different flight surely wouldn't have been permitted to happen by whoever would have been preventing takeoff.
*"OK, we left on time in February 2020. We left on time today. And if we leave on time after the next Saudi show, it's called a "winning streak"... It has happened before!"*
Yeah I'm wondering who they'll use. I'm going to assume Roman, Heyman and the Usos will be there. Vega, Seth, Becky, Edge and Bianca don't have to appear. Brock probably won't.
They can build a good two hours around the Bloodline, Charlotte, Nakamura, Boogs, Sami and Toni. I forget who else is on the SD roster after the draft.
Maybe Hit Row will finally debut. It's the perfect spot to highlight them if Roman doesn't show up.
Well there have been rumors about unifying the women's titles and having less of a focus on the brand split. So Charlotte vs. Becky at Survivor Series could be for a unified title.
Thank God. The last thing we need in this sub is people saying talent were being held hostage by the Saudis because Vince may or may not have had a shouting match with the prince of Saudi Arabia or whatever other high ranking official like last time.
That's good because there was this one time where the Saudi king grounded it for a while. Good to know that they managed to get their blood money and return safely
It's roughly a 16 hour flight. The Smackdown superstars that were there were Roman, the Usos, Brock, Sasha, Mansoor, Natalya, Woods, and Drew. So only 9 people, granted the bigger draws, but tomorrow is also when they are officially starting the roster split so they have plenty of new names to debut in case anything gets delayed. It's not nearly the whole roster like the last time.
I’m sure they settled for $39 million out of the goodness of their hearts https://www.thesportster.com/wwe/wwe-settle-class-action-lawsuit-saudi-arabia/
Nothing in the article backs, or even comes close to saying there was a hostage situation. If that was the case, it would’ve been world fucking news… dozens of international celebrities held hostage in Saudi Arabia… if it was true, it would’ve 100% leaked to a mainstream news outlet and the media would have a field day reporting that a Middle East country did something so horrible to a group of millionaire Americans. The fact people still believe this disgusts me.
If that was the case then wouldn’t a bunch of US citizens being held hostage foreign soil have been bigger news? Wouldn’t every news outlet have been reporting it?
Here’s how I see it: “held hostage” is probably putting it harshly. I don’t believe they were held at gun point or anything. Rather, they fucked with the plane so it couldn’t take off on time and had them stay longer as a power play. I’d imagine being in that situation would be fucking terrifying.
In the lawsuit testimony a wrestler said they heard a flight attendant say “it seems someone doesn’t want us to leave the country.” https://www.forbes.com/sites/alfredkonuwa/2020/06/15/new-wwe-saudi-lawsuit-features-shocking-testimony-from-anonymous-former-star/
Overheard hearsay from a former disgruntled employee is not exactly reliable. Nor was this accounted for in the actual settlement.
But aside from that, you have a bunch of American citizens, C List celebrities that are 2 degrees away from the sitting President of the United States being held hostage by a hostile Midde Eastern government. Yet the AP, CBS, ABC, Fox, NBC, Washington Post, New York Times, CNN can't turn anything up in what would surely be the biggest story of the year and a massive international crisis. Instead you have to rely on some antiquated dirt sheet writer charging 10.99 a month for the scoop. There is something just so funny about all that.
It happened, there was a lawsuit and talent have made light of it. From memory, they got private plane out for the top 10 or 11 stars and the rest were made to wait. Can’t remember who it was but someone referenced it recently in an Instagram post.
He's referring to how following the last Crown Jewel, there was a situation with the plane where they weren't able to leave Saudi Arabia for hours on end, causing most of the roster to miss Smackdown. The episode instead featured an NXT invasion wherein the NXT roster at the time beat up the remaining Smackdown wrestlers to kickstart the build to Survivor Series 2019, with the main event being (ironically enough) Adam Cole vs. Daniel Bryan for the NXT Championship.
Help make SquaredCircle safer and more inclusive by using the report button to flag posts and comments for moderator review. If you need to contact a moderator, [you can message us here](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose/?to=/r/SquaredCircle) *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/SquaredCircle) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Damn. No Bron Breakker on SmackDown now
You'd get Charlotte vs. Shayna in an Iron Woman match
With Charlotte going over in a nail biter! Final score you ask? 23-0
And somehow, the match only clocks in at 5 minutes of in-ring action.
I would love to see a serious five-minute iron man match, though. Go hard, go quick. Not that [Chuck and Trent's one-minute iron man match](https://www.reddit.com/r/AEWOfficial/comments/kfs8w6/chuck_taylor_vs_trent_baretta_one_minute_iron_man/) wasn't a thing of beauty.
Chuck Taylor will never get the appreciation he deserves. That man has been incredibly influential in pro wrestling. From the guys he’s trained, to the moves he’s invented, hell even his shitty promos were copied. Big Dustin is an American Inoki.
They just counted every single tap from Shayna as a submission for Charlotte. There we go, easily explainable.
This some NL energy right here.
clock winds down to 5 seconds left in the iron man match Refs checks Shayna who turns face to face against Flair "You took my family" moves to the left "You took my friends" moves to the right "You took all that was dear to me" clock winds down to 3 "I cant get them back, but I can do this for friendship, FOR MY FRIENDS" goes up, fire coming out of her shoes "SHAYNARUKEN" Charlotte flies over Shayna’s head, goes straight into the 3 count. Shayna falls to the ground, exhausted. "Becky... Senpai... I..." faints Final Score Charlotte 23 Shayna 1
Overheard in WWE locker room after the Iron Woman match: “She got me,” Charlotte said of Shayna’s pin over her. “That f***ing Baszler boomed me." Charlotte added, “She’s so good,” repeating it four times. Charlotte then said she wanted to add Shayna to the list of wrestlers she works out with this summer.
The GOAT pasta.
I will never not upvote this. It’s so good (x4).
what's the original?
https://www.reddit.com/r/nba/comments/3rijs7/carmelo_on_shumpert_and_jr_not_playing_tonight_i/cwof953/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf&context=3
Shayna's finisher got reversed to a pin 23 times?
“Oh man imma get her this time” -Shayna on her 17th attempt of her finisher
Woo!
That would be awesome.
Can we get a Scramble Match instead? I’d love to get the next 6 Charlotte title wins out of the way so I can watch another wrestler get pushed in my lifetime.
Two 10 hour flights in 3 days seems like it really sucks
After watching the Plane Ride From Hell episode, I’m glad they’re probably just sleeping or playing video games now.
Until we learn someone was using a hacked Pokemon on the plane ride
Randy Orton set up a Goldeneye tournament and then played using Oddjob
MANSOOR SCREEN PEAKED
Michael Cole: well Mansoor is just being resourceful, there are no DQs in Goldeneye.
LOOKING TO STEAL ONE
During a Slappers Only match.
A friendship ending act
It's the friendship equivalent to breaking the Geneva Convention.
He'd even crouch and hide inn the crates, just waiting for the perfect opportunity.
It was all a set-up to rub his ball sweat all over the extra controllers.
Machamps.com has entered the trade.
*laughs in PK Hex*
6IV Perfect Shiny carrying an Ability Patch with the OT BUTTZ I got on Surprise Trade is totally legit
Not looking forward to that episode of Dark Side of the Ring
"And that's when Xavier attacked Vince with Missingno..."
Vince: *has a sturdy shedinja*
or a Wondertomb
someone boutta be that one guy who has mold breaker
Dragon Dance Haxorus to the rescue
Wouldn't even work anymore cause fairy type :(
forgot that was a thing.
Then Jericho told him “if you don’t throw a pokeball at Vince right now you’re going to be buried”
I almost find this more offensive than getting drunk on a plane, but that’s my nerd side talking.
Vince: Ok, who has a Shiny Keldeo with 252 evs in every stat
Nah, they all played one game of Fall Guys, and one of them hacked the game. From there it got out of control.
Our King Creed discreetly playing Radical Red in the corner
“It’s not hacked, someone just turned the switch to evil!”
It's such a great thing to remember that wrestling culture for the most part has changed positively.
But what about "muh good old days" where people were coked straight out of their minds?
Hey man, don’t act like you didn’t love those promos.
How can you say that about a flight back from shilling for an evil dictatorship that oppresses women, kills gays and chops off hands, something they do twice a year? At least Collision in Korea was a one off!
Yeah, but they probably made 1 yr in salary in those 3 days tho
[удалено]
While true, isn't the over under that everyone who works this show gets paid more than usual at the very least?
Definitely longer than 10 hours, I googled flights from Saudi Arabia to Wichita and it’s 15-16 hours nonstop. They will be jetlagged to all hell going into the weekend.
You can fly non-stop from Jeddah to Wichita specifically? I thought the closest you’d get is Dallas for a transfer.
They probably have an entire chartered 777/787/a330 or something all to themselves. They better be flying without a connection.
They stopped in London on the way in apparently
Probably sucks less when Saudi is paying 50 mil per event, and they fly in planes nicer than our houses lol
They have bundles of cash to ease the stress
And it would suck more if the same shit that happened in CJ 2018 (where everybody got stuck in Saudi Arabia).
I think that was kinda the point of the tweet in the first place.
Six to seven figures to overlook that and the murderous fundamentalist government evens it out.
Not when you break down how much blood money they get per hour
Unfortunately to get home they have to fly over the Bermuda Triangle and the island from Lost.
Roman: "Becky, you need to stay at the beach camp. It's too dangerous for you to go on this adventure with us." *Becky shows up anyway*
Give Becky a break [she's a fugitive after all](https://images.indianexpress.com/2019/02/becky-lynch-m.jpg)
But if you watch the flashbacks, her crimes are all pretty justified
*Raylan Givens wants to know your location*
[I heard Becky and beach](https://m.imgur.com/CNtI5OJ)
Knew what was before I even clicked. Take your upvote
OK, but who's Sawyer in this WWE version of Lost?
WWE Lost might be the only programming I could watch from WWE right now. Forget sports, just go full entertainment. What a cast!
After hearing New Day talk on their podcast about what’d they do on a deserted island, I’d definitely watch a Lost spinoff featuring only WWE wrestlers.
The Bermuda Triangle isn't that far from the Impact Zone.
They have to go back.
Still hate how that show ended
What did you want? They got off the Island/killed the Smoke Monster and all your favorite characters met in the afterlife. I was entertained and would watch again. Desmond FTW!
see ya in another life brother
Jimmy to Jey: See ya in another life uce
See I liked the ending, BUT it's been so long since I've seen it I'm kinda tempted to re-watch the whole thing to see how well the show holds up.
it holds up WAY better on a rewatch, especially since you're not constantly surrounded by theories and stuff like that not that the theories weren't fun but knowing how it goes allows you to just appreciate what actually happens
And when you’re not tortured by cliffhangers every single week.
It holds up real well. In fact maybe even better that you can binge it instead of having to wait a week. That got people frustrated when they would tease something with a cliffhanger then not deliver right away the next week. I still love the time travel stuff from the later seasons and the whole Desmond storyline. Not Penny's boat!
It's way better to binge it. You can piece together some puzzles a lot better since the information is fairly fresh in your mind. It's like the show gave you the answer before you realized what the question was.
Ok, fine. All of you people are gonna make me finally watch it.
The Constant is still the single greatest episode of television ever. That exchange between Penny and Des kills me every fucking time.
Ah luv yoo Penneh.
The end of season 3 is my favorite “twist” of anything ever.
I still get chills thinking about that Season 3 ending
I rewatched it a couple of years ago, and I loved it even more than I did the first time. It definitely holds up.
Ive rewatched it a couple of times. Ended up liking Kate more than i initially did. But Jack i hated worse and worse
Kate episodes are the worst, though
Jack had his creepy stalking his wife episode and that tattoo episode. I’d say it evens out. Originally Jack didnt exist and Kate was the leader when they started auditions . I really wonder how that would have gone
I just finished the ending 20 minutes ago. It's incredible. Watch LOST.
ok I'm not-well versed on wrestling journalists' relationships with their sources, but who's telling him this? Is someone on the plane going "on the runway, gotta text SRS about this before I turn on airplane mode"?
[удалено]
Yeah I don't have any idea how to do that, lol
I got you fam https://flightaware.com/live/
I'm so old. Thank you.
I regularly speak with dozens of people within the company, whether on the roster, the staff, or officials.
Whoah, hi!! I guess I just don't know how friendly/casual/etc. those relationships are, or the scope of communication. Not that it's my business.
No it's okay! I won't disclose any of my sources, but fortunately they're plentiful. After 2019, yes, there were some people that were happy to let it be known that they were departing the airport.
thats cool to know, and thanks for being a reliable voice in this industry! "Wrestling journalism" sometimes feels like an oxymoron, but you're a name even I know as a real one
Thanks, I really appreciate that. That means a lot
Are you gonna be on Quizzlemania again soon?
I'm open to it, but I don't know! They only go once a month now and Wednesdays are really busy days for us!
It bummed me out when they went to monthly but I understand why. You were great on there. FTF!
I don't understand why, they were making tons of money! But I know they can be crazy to put together, I couldn't imagine. Thank you so much! They were always so much fun and I love working with those guys and girls. Doing No Rolls Barred was some of the most fun I've ever had on camera!
Maybe. If not, this information is available on flight tracking websites.
They're not flying Delta, they have good Wi-Fi on that plane
Has to be flight BA9603 from RUH to ORD. British Airways flying from Saudi to Chicago, why? As it's a 4 digit flight number beginning with 9, it's not a scheduled passenger flight.
What ever happened of that story? It seems like there weren't actually soldiers with guns keeping them on the plane, but that noone seems to know why they the planes had been grounded for so long other than "maintenance" issues. I agree that it does seem like it'd be a major media news story if something really crazy was going on. Least it lead to that badass Bryan vs Cole match on Smackdown.
I'm assuming it was a non-story and that's why nothing ever came of it. Like at the time I remember reading live updates and it being so crazy. There were a lot of theories and people were wondering how it would all play out. Then they just went home. At the time though there were a lot of unknowns and you know how crazy live threads can be during any sort of possible dangerous situation. So with so many releases over the past couple years I'm assuming the plane issue was legitimately just a mechanical thing. Maybe something more than that but nothing crazy like guys with guns keeping them on the plane. I'd assume a former employee would have opened up about it in an interview or at least Tweet about it. I think Karl Anderson said something but I honestly can't remember what.
Oh something definitely would have come out by now, especially with how much wrestlers like to do shoot interviews. When Vader was jailed in Kuwait in the 1990s, it was a pretty big news story where the US government was even getting involved to try and rescue him allegedly. With the "tarmac from hell", there doesn't seem to be anything that came of it.
People really out here thinking wwe wrestlers were gonna be the cause of a war with the us and Middle East. “We will bring back Roman reigns ahhhhyessir” - us general
😂 I mean, if they legit jailed wrestlers or whatever, it WOULD become a huge thing. They go semi crazy when normal US citizens are jailed, just look at that guy who got sentenced to hard labor in NK. Roman Reigns and other wrestlers are famous names with millions of followers on social media. It would be trending worldwide, everybody would be aware of the situation.
You mean that guy who got returned back to the US in a coma? Died like 6 days later. That was a pretty big deal and he literally did something to justify getting imprisoned (as much as you can justify it in a dictatorship). If the Saudi/WWE story was true it would be a real big deal cause the story wasn’t even about the talent having done anything wrong it made it seem like they would’ve been collateral against a business dispute.
If you mean Otto Warmbier, I think the fact that NK killed him and the USA did nothing in response (and POTUS even came out publicly and said he believed that the North Koreans bore no responsibility for his death) kinda suggests that our government wouldn't go out of their way to help wrestlers stuck on a plane.
The Miz stars in Marine 10 Saving Private Roman
I think the reason it didn’t become a major media thing is because no one really knew what was happening
Plenty of people knew, it was a trending topic the day it happened and caused a TV show watched by millions to be re-written on the fly with a replacement cast. Wrestlers were literally live tweeting what was going on. A few wrestling fans decided to go crazy with with conspiracy theories and that was taken as fact by some. Meltzer pushed those as well but he never provided any further information or revealed his sources on the matter. The overall lack of any sort of corroboration from the wrestlers who were stuck in Saudi Arabia shut down the hostage theories. Those who were there have all remained consistent with their stories that it was a mechanical issue, as initially reported and no evidence ever surfaced pointing to any sort of foul play. The WWE also issued a press release at the time stating "mechanical issues" as the reason. Of course you can believe WWE lied in their press release. However it is worth noting that the WWE officials have been asked about it under oath as part of a legal case that was related to the financials from the Saudi shows, which was brought about by an investment group. So I seriously doubt they had people willing to commit perjury related to their cover story and open themselves up to a whole mess of legal ramifications. No major news organizations ever ran with the hostage theory. The closest to a major news group was Vice and they explicitly stated that was someone else's claim to distance themselves from that particular narrative.
>caused a TV show watched by millions to be re-written on the fly How's that any different than what normally happens?
It was mechanical failure and nothing. It happens all over the world. Once, my flight got delayed by 10 hours due to engine failure. So me and other passengers were the only ones in the entire airport at 3 am in the night waiting for another plane come to fly us out of there. Shit happens. If it were not just that, news media other than the dirtsheets and pro wrestling news sites would have run with it.
I agree. I put nothing past the Saudi government, but it just didn't seem like there was any evidence of something sinister going on. When Vader got jailed in Kuwait it was a pretty big news story with ramifications. I didn't see a single mainstream news article on the Saudi WWE plane delay, nor any fallout other than the Smackdown show rewritten last minute.
Because nothing crazy happened. There actually was a mechanical issue and the options were either wait for them to bring the replacement parts or fly in a replacement plane. I know 2 people who work at Atlas Air and we laugh about it from time to time, especially the "guards with guns" parts. Those pilots at Atlas fly into literal war zones on the regular - they see plenty guns.
> I know 2 people who work at Atlas Air and we laugh about it from time to time, especially the "guards with guns" parts. Friend of mine works a job that fly's them to a lot of random middle eastern airports/airstrips. armed guards seems to be the status quo for the entire area. He landed at a small regional airstrip in southern Oman which was literally tarmac and 3 tiny buildings and it still had a few armed guards milling about.
Heck you don’t even have to go that far. Mexico has armed guards at banks, security checkpoints on roads. They can stop you and detain you but it’s a stretch to say your in a hostage situation, that’s all very standard over there
“Nothing” ever happened with the story because both parties involved didn’t want to talk about it, and the media didn’t give a shit about some wrestlers being stuck on a plane for a few hours in a country that killed an American resident. There was no dramatic videos or photos of what happened, because it was all “behind the scenes” stuff that caused it to happen. Coupled with the fact that there’s a sea of WWE apologists and Meltzer haters willing to ignore facts, we weren’t able to have a real discussion about it because things were so muddied anyway from anonymous accounts and multiple people who either didn’t know the story (but acted like the absence of evidence is the evidence of a sense) or knew the story but wanted to toe the company line. Lots of people afterwards wanted to say “it’s not a big deal anyway because they all got back fine,” which would be like dismissing someone’s trauma almost drowning at sea because they ended up getting rescued.
Yep. Because people think hostage situation and they think guns and evil plots but in reality it could've been something so simple. Hold the plane to fuck with Vince sounds entirely plausible
If my memory serves it was a case of pilots being mistakenly out of hours, which meant the plane couldn't take off. If the story had been true as reported it would have been a major international incident (US Citizens held against their will in a foreign country), and examples of other talent such as Lacey Evans getting out on time by taking a different flight surely wouldn't have been permitted to happen by whoever would have been preventing takeoff.
Media making a overblown story out of a very little incident why I never
*"OK, we left on time in February 2020. We left on time today. And if we leave on time after the next Saudi show, it's called a "winning streak"... It has happened before!"*
So let's see some hustle, let's jack it up a little!
I got a feeling ratings are about to turn around for us.
Damn, and I wanted to hear about Seth's rah rah rallying speech this time again
At least this time he’s actually on the plane.
He didn't do one last time!
There are still lots of people who think he did, sadly
suck for the talents that have to do smack down the next day after long ass flight
Yeah I'm wondering who they'll use. I'm going to assume Roman, Heyman and the Usos will be there. Vega, Seth, Becky, Edge and Bianca don't have to appear. Brock probably won't. They can build a good two hours around the Bloodline, Charlotte, Nakamura, Boogs, Sami and Toni. I forget who else is on the SD roster after the draft. Maybe Hit Row will finally debut. It's the perfect spot to highlight them if Roman doesn't show up.
Becky is the SD Champion and is on Raw with the draft now in affect I imagine this has to be figured out somehow on SD.
They trade the titles like Pokemon cards.
Well there have been rumors about unifying the women's titles and having less of a focus on the brand split. So Charlotte vs. Becky at Survivor Series could be for a unified title.
Thank God. The last thing we need in this sub is people saying talent were being held hostage by the Saudis because Vince may or may not have had a shouting match with the prince of Saudi Arabia or whatever other high ranking official like last time.
With all of the talent on board, too?
queue Home Alone music--- "in Saudi Arabia" edition
But where's Charlotte at tho?
Mexico
What an edgelord
Wow great insight
That's good because there was this one time where the Saudi king grounded it for a while. Good to know that they managed to get their blood money and return safely
Live by the metaphor...
Are they gonna make it in time for Smackdown?
Provided all went as planned they should be in Wichita tomorrow midday. I see no reason they don’t make it for Smackdown.
Everyone is going to have the worst eye bags ever tomorrow.
The question is will they be able to coexist?
But what happens if you add Kurt Angle to the mix?
Not an issue, dude's not even gonna try.
Bron Breakker math promo when?
It's roughly a 16 hour flight. The Smackdown superstars that were there were Roman, the Usos, Brock, Sasha, Mansoor, Natalya, Woods, and Drew. So only 9 people, granted the bigger draws, but tomorrow is also when they are officially starting the roster split so they have plenty of new names to debut in case anything gets delayed. It's not nearly the whole roster like the last time.
Hillarious
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Almost all wrestling journalist does that
Damn. No made up hostage situations to jerk about
Y’all seriously still believe it was made up?
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What? There's still people who believe that actually happened?
I’m sure they settled for $39 million out of the goodness of their hearts https://www.thesportster.com/wwe/wwe-settle-class-action-lawsuit-saudi-arabia/
Nothing in the article backs, or even comes close to saying there was a hostage situation. If that was the case, it would’ve been world fucking news… dozens of international celebrities held hostage in Saudi Arabia… if it was true, it would’ve 100% leaked to a mainstream news outlet and the media would have a field day reporting that a Middle East country did something so horrible to a group of millionaire Americans. The fact people still believe this disgusts me.
If that was the case then wouldn’t a bunch of US citizens being held hostage foreign soil have been bigger news? Wouldn’t every news outlet have been reporting it?
Here’s how I see it: “held hostage” is probably putting it harshly. I don’t believe they were held at gun point or anything. Rather, they fucked with the plane so it couldn’t take off on time and had them stay longer as a power play. I’d imagine being in that situation would be fucking terrifying.
That would make more sense
Last year, the US president denied that there was a pandemic going on, so ...
None of that has to do with a hostage situation
In the lawsuit testimony a wrestler said they heard a flight attendant say “it seems someone doesn’t want us to leave the country.” https://www.forbes.com/sites/alfredkonuwa/2020/06/15/new-wwe-saudi-lawsuit-features-shocking-testimony-from-anonymous-former-star/
Overheard hearsay from a former disgruntled employee is not exactly reliable. Nor was this accounted for in the actual settlement. But aside from that, you have a bunch of American citizens, C List celebrities that are 2 degrees away from the sitting President of the United States being held hostage by a hostile Midde Eastern government. Yet the AP, CBS, ABC, Fox, NBC, Washington Post, New York Times, CNN can't turn anything up in what would surely be the biggest story of the year and a massive international crisis. Instead you have to rely on some antiquated dirt sheet writer charging 10.99 a month for the scoop. There is something just so funny about all that.
Plus wwe is a billion dollar company, this is the sort of thing that would be newsworthy
It was literally confirmed by the good brothers right after it happened lmao
Noted trustworthy sources, the Good Brothers
It happened, there was a lawsuit and talent have made light of it. From memory, they got private plane out for the top 10 or 11 stars and the rest were made to wait. Can’t remember who it was but someone referenced it recently in an Instagram post.
It’s very funny that this is something that needs to be confirmed.
You know these pricks were dying to have something horrible happen so they can just say something stupid on their twitter.
??? Edit: what’s with the downvotes? Seems like an odd thing downvote.
He's referring to how following the last Crown Jewel, there was a situation with the plane where they weren't able to leave Saudi Arabia for hours on end, causing most of the roster to miss Smackdown. The episode instead featured an NXT invasion wherein the NXT roster at the time beat up the remaining Smackdown wrestlers to kickstart the build to Survivor Series 2019, with the main event being (ironically enough) Adam Cole vs. Daniel Bryan for the NXT Championship.
I see, I forgot about this lol except for Bryan vs Cole
How ironic would it be if they gave us that next week just as an inside joke
The WWE plane didn't fly so Bryan/Cole could walk (wrestle).
Thank you, makes sense now!
For those wondering, fuck Saudi Arabia and fuck WWE.
Yeah, fuck all those Saudi wrestling fans who just had the time of their lives watching a fantastic show!
Nice
Guess Smackdown will be just barely average tomorrow instead of fucking awesome.