John Oliver Criticizes WWE Over Their Relationship With Saudi Arabia

On Last Week Tonight with John Oliver last night on HBO, Oliver devoted part of a long segment about Saudi Arabia to WWE’s relationship with them and how they ran nonstop propaganda about Saudi Arabia during the Greatest Royal Rumble in April.

The WWE-related parts are below:

Here are the sections about WWE from the feature story about Saudi Arabia on the new “Last Week Tonight with John Oliver” that premiered earlier tonight on HBO. pic.twitter.com/NNOVgzVftW

— David Bixenspan (@davidbix) October 15, 2018

Full video:

Transcript:

But Mohammed Bin Salman’s PR push isn’t just toward attracting businesses. It’s also toward changing the world’s reception of Saudi Arabia. To that end, he struck a ten year deal with one of the most popular and most American franchises there is, World Wrestling Entertainment. They held their first of many events there back in April and audiences around the world were treated with wall to wall propaganda about the new Saudi Arabia, including a video showing women happily driving, men dancing, and tourist destination beauty shots, as well as constant excited compliments throughout the broadcast.

[ They then aired clips of mostly Michael Cole talking about how wonderful and progressive Saudi Arabia is, and John Cena thanking the kingdom of Saudi Arabia. ]

Wow. It seems WWE is as overtly pro-Saudi Arabia as it is latently homo-erotic, which is to say, intensely.

[ Later in the segment ]

As for WWE, they say they are “monitoring the situation.” Their gigantic Crown Jewel event is still scheduled for November, meaning John Cena could well be back there doing this [picture of him thanking Saudi Arabia], which I guess in this context means “you don’t see these human rights abuses right here.” [doing the “you can’t see me” gesture]