On a recent edition of his “The Extreme Life of Matt Hardy” podcast, TNA veteran Matt Hardy discussed WWE’s partnership with Saudi Arabia which commenced in 2018.
You can check out some highlights from the podcast below:
On his initial reaction to the news of WWE’s partnership with Saudi Arabia in 2018: “I wasn’t freaked out. I knew, or I trusted the WWE in the fact that they felt it was safe for us to go over there and do a show, that I was okay with it. Because I felt like they were going to try and make sure they have this working arrangement, and they know what we’re doing, we’re going over there. I remember, at the very beginning, it felt strange when they said like, you know, ‘No women are allowed,’ and they were very strict about that. And that is one thing that has broken as we move forward, obviously.
“But I wasn’t really afraid. I just knew that we’re very different, I was just going to make sure to like, kind of hang out at the hotel and not really do anything out of the way. I was gonna go over there, hang at the hotel, do the show, and then go back, because that’s what it was. And it was one of those things, I was just excited just to see how the regular citizens of Saudi Arabia were going to take in, and how they were going to react to having WWE wrestlers over there. So I was pretty excited about that, in actuality.”
On the locker room reaction: “There were some people that weren’t crazy about it. And most people were just like, ‘You know, it’s another town, another booking. You know, it’s global, it’s a long flight but it’s another booking.’ That’s how the majority of people were. There were some people that weren’t fans of it. And I guess I kind of get that. It depends on where everyone stands, I guess, on their beliefs of morality or whatever else you want to classify as. But the majority of the crew was like, ‘Okay well, it’s another booking, they’re gonna take good care of us. And we’ll go over there and get it done. And we’ll come back.’”
On how many times he went to Saudi shows: “I went to Saudi Arabia twice for two of the events after they started doing them.”
