Eric Bischoff believes The Rock could be exactly the kind of name WWE looks toward for WrestleMania in Saudi Arabia.
During 83 Weeks, Conrad Thompson brought up speculation about Roman Reigns possibly working with Oba Femi or Seth Rollins, with one match potentially landing at SummerSlam and the other at WrestleMania. Conrad then asked Bischoff what WWE might see as the marquee match for WrestleMania in Saudi Arabia. Bischoff made it clear that he does not know what the Saudi audience wants right now, but he spoke from his own experience during his short WWE run in 2019.
“I obviously don’t know because I’m not in touch with anybody in Saudi. I have no idea what the audience is interested in in Saudi. They may be interested in different things than our domestic US audience is interested in.”
Bischoff said that when he was in WWE, the Saudi shows were a constant topic backstage. He described the process as chaotic at the time, with names being thrown around in meetings with Vince McMahon.
“In 2019 when I spent 45 minutes in WWE, one of the big topics of conversation every single week, and it was always the same conversation with the same ending, by the way, which is, okay, what are we going to do in Saudi? And everybody would sit around a table with Vince McMahon and we’d throw these names out, what if this and what if that? And we’d spend hours talking about what Saudi could look like.”
Bischoff said those talks often didn’t lead to an immediate answer, and the group would come back later with the same basic approach.
“And then we’d not come to a decision and we’d agree to meet later on in the week and discuss a new plan, which was the same as the previous plan, which is let’s throw names around and see what works.”
Bischoff then said one thing he heard at the time was that Saudi decision-makers had their own preferences, and those preferences leaned heavily toward older WWE names.
“One of the things I kept hearing was that Saudis had their own ideas about who should be on the card based on the Saudi audience preferences. One of them, Yokozuna. What does that tell you? That the Saudi audience, at least at that time, wasn’t watching the current product. They were watching stuff that was quite old.”
Bischoff said many of the names being discussed back then were either unavailable, no longer active, or not physically able to perform.
“So a lot of the talent, and now this is 2019, this is six, seven years ago, whatever, so things probably have changed, but back then their idea of marquee matchups were guys that were either dead or no longer in the business or capable of which was, you know, a lot of them had the do not touch rule in WWE and just about everybody other than Goldberg fell into that category when those names would come up.”
That is why Bischoff said The Rock makes sense if the Saudi audience still wants major nostalgia names from WWE’s past.
“Now again, maybe the audience has gotten more current and it’s a completely different environment, but my exposure six, seven years ago was they want older names that are not easily available, which makes me think Rock because if that same kind of vintage hangover, we’ll call it legacy hangover, is still part of the audience composition in terms of what they want to see, then obviously bringing Rock back, John Cena in some kind of non-wrestling related role is probably going to check those, we’ll call them nostalgia boxes.”
Bischoff said fans who see the early or mid-2000s as WWE’s peak would likely respond to The Rock and John Cena being involved in some form.
“Those fans that are looking to the early 2000s or mid 2000s as the peak WWE period, you got Rock, you could bring John Cena in to participate. Couple other nice little moves and then balance the rest of the card out with younger talent. But I do see Rock on the card in Saudi for WrestleMania.”
WWE has several newer names it could build around, but Bischoff believes The Rock still checks a very specific box for a massive Saudi Arabia event. If WWE wants legacy star power mixed with younger talent, The Rock’s name is hard to ignore.
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What do you think? Should The Rock be part of WWE Wrestle Mania in Saudi Arabia, or should WWE focus that show around current full-time stars? Please share your thoughts and feedback in the comment section below.