For the last two years, WWE’s shows in Saudi Arabia have been highly controversial. This is for a mountain of reasons, but perhaps the most blatant, hardest to ignore issue was the fact that women were not allowed to compete on the show.
From the beginning it stuck out like a sore thumb. Before I even knew the sanctions, I could tell something wasn’t right from the moment they announced the Greatest Royal Rumble. In addition to the titular 50-man Rumble, they also announced a whopping seven championship matches. Every single title was on the line, every championship… except for the two women’s titles. It didn’t take a lot of sleuthing to realize something was amiss.
Indeed, Saudi Arabia’s strict rules forbade women from wrestling. In fact, even showing a video clip that happened to feature Carmella in her ring gear stirred up a controversy for indecency. It was a little hard to even comprehend. It was like a completely different world that existed overseas.
At last year’s Crown Jewel and this year’s Super Show-Down, it persisted. And the discontent from audiences booing every time the words ‘Saudi Arabia’ were spoken grew, atleast partially because of this very thing. All along it was fairly clear that WWE very much wanted to have women on the card. In fact earlier this year, they actually flew Alexa Bliss and Natalya all the way to Saudi Arabia in the hopes that they could get them onto the show at the last minute. Of course that didn’t end up happening.
Now it appears that things have changed. WWE held a media event from Riyadh, at the site of WWE Crown Jewel itself, which ended just minutes ago at the time of writing. And there, a major announcement was made.
Lacey Evans will now be facing Natalya at WWE Crown Jewel 2019.
They’ve finally managed to convince the crown prince to allow this, it seems. They wanted Alexa and Nattie really bad, but ultimately they never got far enough to actually announce it. It’s only because of leaks that we were aware in advance that it was being planned. And considering how last-minute this addition is, it seems clear that this too, took them a real long time to work out.
If they’re making this announcement it’s because they’ve gotten the go ahead, so it seems this match is happening.
I thought it funny that they seemed so determined to get Natalya in there for this first time occasion. They wanted her here before and now they have her here with a different opponent.
But then it hit me… she already wears a bodysuit.
They were certainly never going to allow women to compete in their usual attires, showing skin is not gonna be okay’d. Alexa Bliss and Sasha Banks once famously had the first women’s match to ever take place in Abu Dhabi, where they wore full-body attires that have never been seen before or since. Nattie’s one that can do something similar whilst still basically looking the same way she usually does. Just has to replace any see-thru fabrics, essentially.
Anyway. Honestly, it’s hard for me to ever feel any joy about these shows, it’s very hard for me to see any silver lining to them. I hate that they exist, honestly. And I’m relieved that this was announced in this fashion rather than on Raw or SmackDown, because it spares from hearing them pat themselves on the back until their spines snap. Sure, I’ll hear plenty after this show but nowhere near as much as you’d get if they were actually building to this match.
But I am genuinely glad that this is happening. I’m happy that going forward people won’t be excluded from wrestling on this show for their gender, as long as it’s a binary one… baby steps… but yannow. If this can make any positive change whatsoever… if seeing these women promoted as athletes, and letting them earn everyone’s respect as athletes improves even a handful of women’s lives, that’s awesome.
