If you’ve been following the news at all, the issue when it comes to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi remains a hot button topic across the country.

At the same time, the initial blow back from fans regarding WWE’s Crown Jewel event in Saudi Arabia on November 2nd has certainly been more quiet than it was initially, but pressure from outside of the wrestling bubble has seemingly only grown larger. We’ve also heard how there are multiple WWE Superstars that don’t want to go to Saudi Arabia for the show (see that story here) and there have now been multiple reports on a couple of those names.

Originally, Robbie Fox of Barstool Sports reported that both John Cena and Daniel Bryan are “refusing” to work the event. Later in the day, Ringside News reported that both Superstars do not want to attend due to their public profiles, more so in Cena’s case due to his budding movie career. Then, Cena would send out this tweet leading many to believe he was referring to reports of refusing to work Crown Jewel:

Believe in what you say, and what you do. If you say and do things just to create an image of what you want people to think, over time they will eventually see who you really are.

— John Cena (@JohnCena) October 22, 2018

On top of all of that, Dave Meltzer has since reported on the most recent Wrestling Observer Radio that prior to last night’s RAW, the WWE’s creative team was informed that Cena would no longer be going to Saudi Arabia. Of course, Cena has been scheduled to take part in the World Cup tournament, which Meltzer adds creative was told he needed to be replaced. However, during RAW we would see a promo segment where Kurt Angle talked about the other competitors in the World Cup which still included John Cena.

As for Daniel Bryan, Meltzer would state that he’s not aware if there’s anything to the reports of him refusing to work Crown Jewel or not.

EA’s Take: Generally where there is smoke there’s fire and at least when it comes to Cena here, there’s a lot of smoke. Robbie Fox was the first to report Roman Reigns being “injured” and he turned out to be correct, it’s just that the wording was incredibly vague. I’m inclined to buy a lot of this, it’s just hard to picture Cena not going along with the company on anything. He’s always been that “loyal soldier”, but if anyone’s in a position where they can speak up and get away with it, Bryan and Cena are certainly two top candidates. I mean, perhaps there’s still a shot the whole thing gets moved? Seems far fetched this close to show day, but I guess anything’s still possible at this point.

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