Saudi Women Get a Live Look at Once ‘Indecent’ Pro Wrestlers
Saudi Women Get a Live Look at Once ‘Indecent’ Pro Wrestlers
WWE event in Jeddah marks raucous milestone of social change in deeply conservative Arab kingdom
Donna Abdulaziz
Updated April 30, 2018 10:59 a.m. ET
On Friday night, the cult obsession with pro wrestlers spilled into the open when this Red Sea coastal city hosted a pay-per-view event, World Wrestling Entertainment Inc.’s Greatest Royal Rumble. Seizing the moment, Saudi authorities made it another cultural milestone in a series of societal changes: Women, for the first time, were allowed to watch men wrestle live in the ring.
The result was an unpredictable collision of cultures at the King Abdullah Sports City Stadium, where tens of thousands of Saudis attended a rowdy spectacle that tested the limits of change in a religious society that restricts women far more than most.
WWE star John Cena hoisting professional wrestler Paul ‘Triple H’ Levesque during their match in Jeddah on Friday. Photo: Amr Nabil/Associated Press
May Omar, 27 years old, showed up ready to cheer for her favorite wrestler, Triple H, known for slamming opponents’ faces into the mat. She bought a double-extra-large T-shirt with his face on it and wore it in place of her abaya—the traditional, normally black robe that Saudi women are required to wear over their regular clothes.
“It’s flowy and black, so really, what’s the difference?,” Ms. Omar said of wearing the T-shirt instead of the abaya, a decision that not long ago could have earned her unwanted attention from the religious police. “It’s really fun to wear the T-shirt of the wrestler you support.”
Other women abandoned another Saudi tradition and wore no head scarf, a breach of past practice that is becoming more common in general. Some women were covered entirely, including their faces, while one partially covered woman wore a baseball cap featuring WWE star John Cena.
Ms. Omar said she has enjoyed watching wrestling with her male cousins since she was a child. She remembered trying to sneak wrestling magazines into school, only to have them confiscated. “Teachers considered it indecent and inappropriate to look at male wrestlers,” she said.
Saudi authorities billed the event as a reflection of 32-year-old Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s attempt to modernize the kingdom and make it less oil-dependent by building other industries, including an entertainment sector that until now didn’t exist. The country this month opened its first theaters in over three decades. There are plans for a vast entertainment and theme-park complex outside of Riyadh.
Turki al Sheikh, a top adviser to the crown prince and chief of the country’s General Sports Authority, opened the Royal Rumble with a short speech, saying King Salman and his son, Prince Mohammed, were showing “attentiveness to the people’s happiness.”
Pro wrestling has had a cult following for decades in Saudi Arabia and other Persian Gulf Arab countries, where the matches are carried on both local and satellite television channels. The WWE, the largest pro-wrestling company, has held eight events in Saudi Arabia in the past, but until this week always for an all-male audience and never televised.
“Women should have been attending these events a long time ago,” said Majid AlSulami, an Arabic teacher who attend Friday night’s event by himself.
The outcomes are predetermined and the violence, while physical, is largely staged. The WWE calls itself a “mashup between reality, drama, sitcom and sports.”
Allowing women at wrestling matches follows other milestones for women this year, including letting them attend soccer matches and lifting a ban on women driving. This week, a female singer performed live before a mixed-gender audience during Riyadh’s first-ever opera performance.
To be sure, the kingdom remains a deeply restrictive place. Christian churches and synagogues aren’t allowed. Women still need the permission of a male guardian to do things like travel or get married.
And Western-style events imported to the kingdom get a Saudi makeover. Riyadh Fashion Week, for instance, didn’t allow men, and only government-approved photographers could shoot pictures.
WWE organizers had promised the event would be less raunchy than some of its performances in the U.S. There were no pre-match events involving women wrestling each other, which would cut against Islamic mores, for instance. Women attendees had to sit in special “family sections” away from single men.
At 8:18 p.m. local time, all went quiet as the Islamic call to prayer sounded over the loudspeakers. For about 20 minutes, the wrestling stopped as some in the audience went to pray.
Then things kicked off again, with some uncommon scenes for the deeply Islamic country.
U.S. Women wrestlers dressed in skimpy tank tops and bras were splashed across video screens, drawing hoots and cheers from the mostly male audience.
Male wrestlers were expected to wear leggings, in accordance with Muslim customs against men showing skin between the navel and their knees. But many wore short-legged wrestling outfits that showed their entire legs.
For the WWE, the event is meant to showcase Arab passion for a uniquely American spectacle. The organization has held 40 live events in the region since its first in Kuwait in 1996 and has a weekly Arabic language television show.
‘They’ll tell me that wrestling is too violent for girls, it’s a boys sport. But I don’t care.’
—Saudi wrestling fan Reema AlSharif
Friday night’s event was billed as special, with 50 wrestlers—more than usual for a Royal Rumble, a last-man-standing tournament. It also played to Saudi pride, featuring what the WWE said were its first-ever Saudi male wrestlers.
Before the main event, the crowd went into a frenzy when, in a staged confrontation, some Saudi wrestlers were accosted by a group of purportedly Iranian wrestlers, who taunted them in Farsi and carried an Iranian flag. The Saudis promptly beat up the Iranians.
Reema AlSharif, a 25-year-old diving instructor, said she had watched American pro wrestling since she was five years old but had never been able to attend any Saudi wrestling events until now. She said her uncles gave her a hard time about her interest in wrestling.
“They’ll tell me that wrestling is too violent for girls, it’s a boys sport,” she said at the WWE event, which she attended with her sister and other family members. “But I don’t care.”
“It’s a great opportunity to be here,” she said.
Corrections & Amplifications
Reema AlSharif is a diving instructor. A World article on Friday incorrectly said she is a driving instructor. (April 30, 2018)
