On April 27 the World Wrestling Entertainment will hold “The Greatest Royal Rumble” event in Saudi Arabia and it has been announced that they will capitulate to the country’s misogynistic views on women by not having them perform that night.
What a spineless move by WWE, they decided that money was much more important than sticking to their principle of allowing their women athletes to steal the show.
Paul “Triple H” Levesque defended WWE’s position by saying;
“I understand that people are questioning it, but you have to understand that every culture is different and just because you don’t agree with a certain aspect of it, it doesn’t mean it’s not a relevant culture.
“You can’t dictate to a country or a religion about how they handle things but, having said that, WWE is at the forefront of a women’s evolution in the world and what you can’t do is affect change anywhere by staying away from it.”
This is the same old tired cultural relativist babble that is heard when ever the mistreatment of women in the middle east is brought up.
For the past two years, the WWE has promoted and coined the phrase the “women’s evolution.”
The philosophy which meant that women in the WWE are no longer “divas” but instead, are women athletes capable of putting on historic matches just like the men can.
Every Pay-Per-View event, the women’s division tear down the house with their athleticism and great in-ring story telling.
No longer are women matches jokingly referred to as “piss breaks” during WWE’s 2-3 hour events.
What WWE should’ve told Saudi Arabia is that if they want the product to be in-town they have to accept all its talents, not just the men.
It comes to show the weakness in WWE’s ideology, that is, they’re all for giving its women opportunity for competition in the states but not places where it would be a real bold stance and meaningful to promote.
Now, to be fair, “Triple H” did say that he hopes that women would be able to wrestle in Saudi Arabia in the next couple of years.
Well, the WWE could’ve made that bold move by allowing them wrestle anyway.
But of course, through cowardliness and fear of offense they surrendered to a patriarchal theocracy and allow it to suppress the art of wrestling that these women perform.
Funny that “Triple H” says “you can’t dictate to a country or a religion about how they handle things…” but guess what, you allowed a misogynistic country and religion dictate how to present your product and suppress its art.
This undermines the “women’s revolution” and most importantly, it undermines the “blood, sweat and tears” that gets put into that ring.
