JBL Defends WWE Running Night Of Champions During Iran Conflict

On the latest episode of Something To Wrestle With, JBL talked about WWE running events in Saudi Arabia and had strong words for those who criticized the company for the decision amid regional tensions. You can check out some highlights below:

On his take: “I have opinion about especially — start with Saudi Arabia. You talk about the negative stuff, I was reading all these tweets about how they’re taking money over safety and all this bulls**t. And it is bulls**t, by the way, it’s just bulls**t. They’d be like, ‘Oh, they don’t care anything about the guy’s safety.’ They’re going over there too. I mean, they’re not gonna put their own lives at risk, they have families also. This is just insane to me that people were — and tweet after tweet was negative about, ‘Oh, they’re just putting money above safety.’ That war was 1,000-plus miles away. And to get to Saudi Arabia, they’re flying private. They’re not flying over Iran airspace. You fly over from like the Egypt direction. You’re flying from west to east, not east to west. So you’re not anywhere near this freaking war zone.

“It’s like shutting down Austria because there’s a war in Ukraine. Would you feel safe going to Vienna? Yeah, of course you would. But if you’re sitting there saying, if you want to bash WWE and have a match in Vienna, they’re going, Oh, how dare you guys send them to Europe. There’s a war going on in Ukraine. Yeah, it’s not gonna cross the border of Saudi Arabia. That’s World War III. If that happens.”

On those who criticize the company for its business partnerships: “I don’t have any issue with them going to Saudi Arabia. I don’t think it was about money over safety. Was it about money? Of course it was. It’s about money if you go to Baltimore. It’s about money if you go to LA. You’re getting paid a ton of money to go there, you’re fulfilling your contract. That’s what people do. And so I don’t have any issue whatsoever with them going to Saudi Arabia.

“And I think all of this clamoring about, ‘Oh, how dare you send people into a war zone?’ I’ve been to war zones. That ain’t a war zone. Now I’m not a soldier, and I don’t want to take away from — no Stolen Valor here of claiming that I did anything that was great. I wasn’t, I was taken care of by the military and very well protected. But there’s no comparison, absolutely no comparison. I thought what they did in Saudi Arabia was what they should have done.:

On the CM Punk situation: “And as far as CM Punk… We’ve always been friends. You say things sometimes in life that you mean, and then your life changes. If you haven’t changed in several years, you’ve done nothing in your life. For people to go back and look at tweets that people put 10 years ago? I said stuff 10 years ago that I would not mean today. I can’t think of a specific example. Because people say, ‘Well, give me an example.’ I don’t know. I mean, in life you change. If you hadn’t changed in 10 years, you haven’t done anything.

“CM Punk doesn’t need the money. He doesn’t need the money to go over there. And I think he’s a stand-up guy. I think anybody that knows him knows that, he’s a stand-up dude. And if he didn’t want to go, he wouldn’t have gone. You can’t make him go. WWE is not going to make him go, I guarantee that. So if he went, he went on his own volition. And if he apologized, he apologized because his view had changed and he meant it. And so I’m taking that 100% at face value. I think anybody that doesn’t is a mind reader. You can’t read minds. You don’t know what’s inside of CM Punk. You’re just making s**t up because you want to be negative.”

If you use any of the quotes in this article, please credit Something to Wrestle with a h/t to 411mania.com for the transcription.