Jerry Lawler Reveals What Vince McMahon, AJ Styles Said About Saudi Arabia Issue

WWE Hall of Famer Jerry "The King" Lawler took to his podcast Friday to discuss the travel issues that resulted in much of the WWE roster getting stranded in Saudi Arabia last week.

On The Jerry Lawler Show (h/t WrestlingInc.com's Raj Giri), King noted that a talent meeting was held prior to Monday's episode of Raw, and he described what WWE Chairman Vince McMahon told the wrestlers:

"Vince said, 'Guys, we've all been in this business for awhile, we've all experienced some travel issues in the past, but I can honestly say that in all of the years that I've been in the business, I've never seen this many travel issues happen at one time with a plane.'

"Vince said to everybody, 'Guys, I've never seen anything like it, I'm sure you've never seen anything like it and hopefully we'll never experience anything like that again. We'll always have the travel people [stay with talent], they'll be the last people to leave. We'll always take care of this.' Vince and those guys got out on his jet thinking that all of the talent was going to be right behind him, so they didn't have a clue that all of this was going on."

McMahon, Triple H, Brock Lesnar, Paul Heyman and a few others were able to leave Saudi Arabia as scheduled, and McMahon reportedly wasn't aware of the travel issues being experienced by the rest of the personnel until he was already in the air.

The wrestlers were supposed to arrive back in the United States the day after Oct. 31's Crown Jewel was held in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, and the SmackDown crew was scheduled to go to Buffalo, New York, and appear on Friday Night SmackDown.

As a result, WWE had to call an audible and fly NXT talent into Buffalo on the day of the show and go with an angle that saw NXT Superstars such as Adam Cole, Shayna Baszler, Tommaso Ciampa, Matt Riddle and Keith Lee invade SmackDown ahead of Survivor Series.

In addition to McMahon, Lawler said AJ Styles and Karl Anderson were the only people to speak during Monday's talent meeting. Lawler noted that Styles expressed concern about the circumstances surrounding the travel issues: "AJ said, 'I'll be honest with you, man, we were just minutes away from somebody going off and something bad happening. All I'm thinking about is that I'm supposed to be at home playing ball with my son right now and instead I'm stuck here in Saudi Arabia and nobody can explain to me why.'"

Vince assured Styles and everyone else that the travel issues were related solely to mechanical issues, including the tug that was supposed to pull the plane away from the gate and the manifest because of the amount of weight on board.

Lawler said McMahon added that WWE's "relationship with the Saudi government and the Prince is at an all-time high," in response to speculation that issues between the two sides played into the delay.

After the travel issues were finally solved and all of the WWE talent returned home, WWE announced Monday that it expanded its partnership with the Saudi General Entertainment Authority through 2027.

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