Things are changing in the WWE, but this time it looks like they had nothing to do with this one.
Sami Zayn has been one of WWE’s biggest stars the last year or so, and he’s going to take part in his first match in Saudi Arabia since the WWE inked their deal to do stadium shows in the county.
The deal was also meant to promote Saudi Arabia as a tourist destination, but one that hasn’t been able to go there until now was reportedly due to Zayn being a second generation Syrian.
While that doesn’t seem like a big problem on the surface, tensions in the Middle East are usually pretty high and relations between the two countries have been non existent.
The reason for that is following the Saudi government backing non government forced in the Syrian Civil War in 2011, the countries severed diplomatic ties.
In 2019, according to the Wrestling Observer Newsletter via Cultaholic, the Saudi government they didn’t want Zayn at Super Showdown because of his ethnicity.
Is Zayn banned for Saudi Arabia?
This is the question many fans have been wondering, and Zayn appeared on The Blindboy Podcast in 2020 to talk about this and other topics.
His answer on whether he’s banned of not was simply “I don’t know.”
“I don’t know. I don’t know the specifics on this. To this day I didn’t really ask because I wasn’t really keen on going anyway. But WWE did a thing, a partnership or signed some sort of deal to put on these shows in Saudi Arabia for I don’t know, what? Ten years or something like that, and I just wasn’t invited to go and I never really dug into it too much because I wasn’t keen on going, to begin with…”
The answer as to whether or not he’s banned seems moot at the current point as the two countries resumed their diplomatic ties on May 9, 2023 shortly after Syria was readmitted to the Arab League.
The state run Saudi Press Agency released a statement as to why the they reestablished their diplomatic ties with Syria:
“Based on the deep bonds and common affiliation of the peoples of the Syrian Arab Republic and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, and in confirmation of both communities’ wills, and based on the Syrian Arab Republic believe in the importance of strengthening bilateral relations between Arab countries to serve joint Arab action, The Syrian Arab Republic decided to resume the work of its diplomatic mission in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.”
This may or may not be the reason Zayn’s going to appear at Night of Champions to defend the tag team titles against Roman Reigns and Solo Sikoa, but whatever the reason, it’ll be a treat for the fans to see him in action.
Zayn has unbelievable charisma and is always fun to watch no matter where he is.
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