WWE Reportedly Moved May Saudi Arabia Show To June, Plans Included Undertaker and Brock Lesnar

As we previously reported, a court filing from WWE revealed that the company will next return to Saudi Arabia in November (November 1 at the King Saud University Stadium in Riyadh), which seemed to suggest that a planned show for May, which had been rumored, is no longer on the schedule. In the latest edition of the Wrestling Observer Newsletter, Dave Meltzer reports that the show has been moved from May 3 to June 7. The show has yet to be officially announced. There are currently no main roster shows on the schedule between April 30 and May 5 because of the planned Saudi trip, so talent may have that time off unless WWE decide to book some new arenas. The date was moved due to logistical purposes.

Due to WWE moving the show, it’s likely that house shows listed from June 7 to June 9 in Denver, Boise, Oakland and Stockton could be cancelled. That would put RAW and Smackdown in Austin and Laredo on June 3 and 4, then in San Jose on June 10 and Sacramento on June 11, with a Saudi trip in between. Before that, the Saudi trip was scheduled to coincide with the start of the European tour. WWE’s European tour begins on May 8 in Belfast and ends on May 19 in Switzerland, so it will be long over by the time the June show would happen. Compare that to the November show, which comes before a European tour that begins on November 4 in Milan, Italy and ends on November 16 in Dusseldorf.

If the new date is official, the WWE will have a streaming event on Friday afternoon from Saudi Arabia (as part of the deal is for the shows to be promoted as if they are major PPVs) with the next night expected to be an NXT Takeover in San Jose, so they would have to have two different production crews working the events.

Undertaker and Brock Lesnar were both contacted and agreed to work the May 3 show, but it’s unknown if they would also work the June 7 event. The Observer notes that the continued relationship between WWE and the Saudi government is “very strong.”