George Barrios Thinks WWE Crown Jewel 2019 Plane Incident Was ‘Exaggerated To Some Degree’

Former WWE Co-President George Barrios believes that the infamous plane incident from WWE Crown Jewel 2019 wasn’t as bad as it was made out to be. The 2019 iteration of the PLE is notorious for the incident, during which the charter flight to leave Saudi Arabia saw a massive delay that left talent, staff, and crew stranded on the plan for several hours.

Barrios was part of the company at that time, and he spoke about the incident in an appearance on My World With Jeff Jarrett. Barios compared the situation to another one where a new airport fee had been instituted and caused a delay. You can see the highlights below (per Fightful):

On Stories Of the incident:

“I think it was exaggerated to some degree, and again, look, back to doing business in other countries, there were other runways around the world where our plane was delayed. I remember somebody calling us like, ‘Hey, there’s a new fee –’ it was not in Riyadh. It was in a different country; I won’t name it. But we’re getting called. Our plane had been delayed… It had gotten serious enough; it had reached my desk. Usually this stuff is just getting handled. But it reached my desk because a new fee had been instituted in this country — airport fee — that was a lot of money… to get out… Someone could look at this and say you’re being extorted to being left out of the country. I guess it depends how you wanna look at it. But in that moment, there was a fee.”

On Resolving the Matter:

“What did I say? I said, ‘Pay the f**king fee. We’re coming home, right? So I don’t even know why you’re calling me. Yes, it’s a lot of money but yeah, we’re paying the airport fee.’ If anybody’s listening and is gonna charge me with a violation of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, I say bullsh*t. That was the then law in that country and we obeyed it. So when you ask about what happened in Saudi Arabia, I think for the most part — I don’t know exactly and I’m not trying to say there was an analog there. I’m just saying there was a delay and then we got out… I’ll leave it at that.”