The people who build UFC and WWE shows are getting loud about Riyadh. Sources inside TKO Group Holdings told Yahoo Sports’ Uncrowned that a growing number of employees are fed up with the company’s insistence on running events in the Saudi capital. Missile and drone attacks by the Houthi militia in Yemen keep landing on the country. TKO had not responded to Uncrowned’s request for comment at the time of publication.
The timing is brutal. WWE wrapped Crown Jewel in Riyadh on Saturday, and hours later, on Sunday, a missile struck a tower owned by state-run oil company Aramco in the city’s financial district. All WWE wrestlers had reportedly left the country by then. Even so, some TKO workers told Uncrowned their safety has felt like little more than an afterthought as these shows have rolled on.
“Why are you still even having these shows at this point?” one source asked, speaking anonymously out of fear of reprisal. That source answered their own question: the money, with fourth-quarter earnings and shareholder returns riding on the Middle East dates.
Next up is a Zuffa Boxing card in Riyadh this Saturday, Nov. 14, then a UFC Fight Night there on Dec. 5. Staff say the silence about that UFC show is the part that stings most. “Not one email has gone out saying, ‘Here are the details and the plans for December 5th.’ That’s crazy,” one source said. “How about a backup plan? How about a safety letter?”
How bad it’s gotten
On Oct. 10, a cruise missile hit King Khalid International Airport in Riyadh, killing 13 people and wounding more than 300. The U.S. State Department then ordered diplomats and non-emergency government personnel out of Saudi Arabia. The Six Kings Slam tennis event and the PIF Saudi International golf tournament were both postponed. Fight sports kept going. Canelo Alvarez fought Christian Mbili in Riyadh on Oct. 31, two days after the Saudi government issued a warning about a hostile aerial threat. Turki Alalshikh, who helped promote that bout, also co-founded Zuffa Boxing. The New York Times now describes the attacks as happening nearly every day.
TKO CEO Ari Emanuel told Fox News on Oct. 23 that the company was watching the situation closely and felt safe proceeding. “It’s a daily monitoring,” he said.
TKO President Mark Shapiro struck a similar tone at a company town hall. He told staff the company would “not hesitate” to cancel or postpone in the event of “danger or a further escalation.” He also said “business is secondary” to safety. In the same meeting, Shapiro told staff TKO is on track for a monster year, with a raised revenue target of $5.83 billion. “We want to have the year we all envisioned,” Shapiro said.
Inside the company, people are quietly sorting out who has to go and who can get out of it. “I’m not the only one who does not want to fly there,” one employee said. Another source said some staff plan to refuse when travel day arrives, but doubted many would follow through. “This is a company that can fire you for no reason or any reason,” that source said. The crews also get stacked onto side gigs, with some production workers expected to cover a Power Slap event in Riyadh on Nov. 6 on top of their usual load.
My take: the UFC has already shown it can move a card fast. In 2018, a Jon Jones drug-testing issue pushed an entire event from Las Vegas to California on a few days’ notice during Christmas week. Dec. 5 is more than three weeks out. If camera operators are the ones begging for a safety letter, the real problem here is the shrug coming from the executive floor, and that plan should be on paper before anyone boards a flight to Riyadh.
