In the overwhelming news story for the day, it now appears that whatever issue keeping the vast majority of WWE’s main roster talent stuck in Saudi Arabia has apparently been dealt with. It’s been reported that they are fine, and will be making their way onto a plane in five hours – that of course was as of an hour ago at the time of writing.
There’s still no word on what WWE intends to do on SmackDown as of now, though they have teased a chaotic episode and many have intimated that new folks will be getting opportunities. Obviously, a ton of talent has been officially pulled from the show. Goes without saying considering their flight will start at about the same time the show itself does. They’re now on track to make it back stateside by 9 PM CST tomorrow.
Heart goes out to them for what had to have been a very rough day. At the moment we still have no idea what actually happened to cause such a substantial delay. This being Saudi Arabia, there were a lot of potential issues to say the least, many of them quite scary for fans, friends and family alike. But it seems everyone’s alright. They will have quite the story to tell at some point though.
WWE is currently reporting an issue with the plane itself in a released statement.
According to them, more than 175 people boarded a charted flight to Buffalo, and due to technical issues, were stuck on it for six hours before eventually being forced to leave. Some felt strongly enough to make the show to charter their own plane (the 20 people reported in the last article, which may have actually been 22) but according to this statement, due to an unforeseen issue, they too will not make it in time for SmackDown.
They have stated that SmackDown will go ahead with talent who were not in Saudi Arabia, listing Daniel Bryan, The Miz, Nikki Cross, Dana Brooke and “several surprises”. It’s been confirmed that a number of NXT talents have been flown in. Whether they’ll actually be used or if they’re just on stand-by, as is often the case, not sure at the moment. But they did make the effort of getting them there and odds seem good that they will end up on this SmackDown. No names were specified.
Vince McMahon and key production staff – so, that’d include Kevin Dunn, presumably – made it out of the country before all these issues surfaced. Brock Lesnar, Paul Heyman and Hulk Hogan are among the others to have left early.
It would appear that much of the talent itself has little idea what’s going on.
However, many have intimated that this is not a matter of a mechanical issue, like WWE’s statement claims. It’s unlikely that the other chartered flight, which will also not be making it in time, is also facing mechanical issues.
Matches have started to be announced for SmackDown now, including confirming some of what was already advertised. I will have an official preview up within a couple of hours.
