George Barrios Recalls Armed Guards & Prince In Underwear During WWE-Saudi Arabia Deal Negotiations

Former WWE Co-President and Board Member George Barrios recently detailed how the WWE-Saudi Arabia deal was finalized.

Barrios recently appeared on Jeff Jarrett’s My World podcast, where he elaborated on how the deal came together. Barrios revealed that since Vince McMahon didn’t want to fly to Riyadh and former WWE Co-President Michelle Wilson wasn’t going because she’s a woman, he had no choice but to head to Saudi Arabia to finalize the deal. The former executive revealed that his wife wasn’t a fan of him traveling to Riyadh.

Barrios further revealed that there were guards armed with machine guns, and one of the Princes was in his boxer shorts with a hookah setup beside him. George added that the Prince yelled at him because he felt that WWE was getting too greedy. He described the difficulties in dealing with logistics, as the country had a non-existent ticketing system. However, Barrios added that, for the most part, the Saudis were “really good partners.” Here’s what he said [quotes via Fightful]:

“I was a little worried”- George Barrios about traveling to Saudi Arabia

“I remember Michelle’s not going because she’s a woman, and that adds a level of complexity at that point in time, less so, but then it was an issue. Vince (McMahon), I don’t think I wanted to go, honestly, and so I’m like, ‘F*ck it. It’s me!’ I’m up… I like to consider myself this tough street kid. I’ve been in a million fights; I’m not scared of anybody. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, but I was like, I was a little worried, and I remember Carol, my wife, was a little worried… We had made the decision: I’m going. We’re going. We’re gonna get this deal done. It’s the night before the earnings call. So usually, I’m home late anyway, because we were prepping… At this point, we hadn’t even been prepping. We were working on this. But I come home, it’s like 1 o’clock in the morning… I gotta turn on the lights, and I gotta pack and she’s like, ‘Pack? Where are you going?’ I go, ‘After the earnings call, I’m flying to Riyadh,’ and she’s like, ‘What!?’ My own personal things, explaining that she was worried about it.

George Barrios describes the scene at the meeting; says the Saudi Prince yelled at him

“But I get out and I will tell you… I have negotiated deals in every part of the world. I am very comfortable in every part of the world, even when the customs are very different… Broken bread in China, Thailand, India, everywhere, you know? That was the most unique kind of business meeting I’ve ever been in. First thing is we’re scheduled to start at 7 PM. We don’t start till like 11 PM. Again, we’re talking weeks after the (Jamal) Khashoggi thing. We drive into this compound; it’s pitch black. Get out; there’s guards everywhere strapped with machine guns. Go into this meeting; it’s almost like a man cave. It‘s dark. It’s—I don’t know—five, six, probably six… two rows of three of these giant TVs, all with YouTube with all different things on them.

“It’s like this giant man cave with one of the most senior Princes in the Kingdom, who’s in his boxer shorts with a hookah, and the meeting starts with him f*cking yelling at me because he thinks we’re being a little greedy on the terms of the deal, and me going into this side room with his number two guy to hammer out the deal, and it’s me and a couple of my guys, junior guys, and them, and it’s this small room with these overstuffed couches—very nice—and these guards are walking in and out with little boxes, and I’m like, ‘God, man, I’m going out in one of those boxes.’ I bet it’s at the end of this thing.'”

Barrios says the Saudis were “really good partners”

“So, like I said, I like to pretend I’m not afraid of anything. I was a little uncomfortable. It was the most unique kind of business dealing I’d ever had, but the reality is, while I was there, they were amazing partners. They can be a little slow sometimes, and as they were getting their sea legs on putting together these large-scale events… A lot of our team—there were a lot of late nights—kind of working through all the logistics of it because you guys know how hard it is to put on major events, and now you’re doing it in a country that’d never done it before. Their ticketing system at that point was non-existent. So how did you get tickets in people’s hands, all this stuff? So we had to do it, but they were good partners. For the most part, they were really good partners.”

Check out his comments below:

WWE is set to head to Saudi Arabia for its latest premium live event, i.e., Crown Jewel, this November.