Though the partnership between WWE and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has been controversial, it has also been very profitable for the leader in sports entertainment.
With reports claiming the WWE generates $50 million per event in Saudi Arabia, these events—such as the most recent Night of Champions—earn more money than almost every other WWE Premium Live Event (PLE).
This explains the new report claiming that the WWE is going back next year, not once, not twice, but three times.
WWE will reportedly run three events in Saudi Arabia in 2026
In the wake of Night of Champions, where John Cena emerged victorious over his presumably ‘final’ match with CM Punk, Fightful Select reports that the team “instrumental” in putting together this recent PLE will begin to work in the next few weeks on next year’s Royal Rumble, set to take place in Riyadh, Saudia Arabia sometime in January 2026.
While Night of Champions is the WWE’s only event in Saudi Arabia in 2025, Fightful Select reports that there will be three WWE PLEs taking place there in 2026. The report doesn’t specifically name what events, but says the PLEs are tentatively planned for May and November.
The WWE traditionally holds its Survivor Series event in November, a tradition dating back to 1987. In recent years, the PLE has taken place during Thanksgiving weekend.
Fightful Select reports that it reached out to WWE sources, who allegedly said that either the November event in Saudi Arabia wouldn’t be Survivor Series, or it will be the Survivor Series but held on a different weekend (allowing the Superstars to spend the time with their families instead of flying overseas).
In recent years, the WWE has held its Backlash event in May and at international locations. In 2023, Backlash took place in San Juan, Puerto Rico, an event that had Bad Bunny defeat Damian Priest in a San Juan Street Fight. In 2024, the WWE took Backlash to Lyon, France.
In 2018, WWE and Saudi Arabia agreed to a ten-year deal to run two events per year, according to Wrestlenomics’ Brandon Thurston, who also notes that the deal may be extended past 2027 due to missed events during the pandemic.
Wrestlenomics also broke down how they determined that the WWE gets $50 million per event, and how, until the most recent WrestleManias, the largest gate for a single pro-wrestling event was $17.3 million.
“In fact, just the first five Saudi events WWE held under the agreement added up to more revenue than all Wrestlemania ticket sales combined, ever up to that point, adjusted for inflation,” wrote Thurston in 2020. The WWE’s partnership with the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has not been without criticism.
The Saudi Arabian government has been famously accused of killing journalists who criticize the Saudi royal family, like Jamal Khashoggi and Tuki Al-Jasser (who was executed right before Night of Champions).
These criticisms, along with criticisms of WWE working with such a regime, were recently thrust back into the spotlight thanks to CM Punk’s involvement in the Night of Champions main event.
Punk (real name Phillip Brooks) is known to be an outspoken supporter of the LGBTQ+ community, even launching a trans pride t-shirt with All Elite Wrestling in August 2023. As Brandon Thurston pointed out in his recent op-ed, Saudi Arabia criminalizes homosexuality and punishes gender nonconformity.
“It is not acceptable to see the largest professional wrestling company in the world dance to the puppet strings of a government that is known for squashing basic human rights,” writes The Daily DDT’s Raphael Garcia. “CM Punk is known for using his platform of millions of followers to criticize the US Government for actions against various minority communities, but he made it a point to apologize to another which does the same, and even more heinous things against the same groups.”
The “apology” came during the Night of Champions kickoff show, when a Saudi Arabian fan confronted Punk.
In 2020, a then-retired CM Punk tweeted, “go suck a blood money covered d—k in Saudi Arabia you f—king dork” in response to WWE Superstar The Miz making a thinly-veiled jab.
“This guy wants me to apologize for a mean tweet I wrote six years ago,” said Punk. “Hey, listen, legitimately had nothing to do with Saudi Arabia. I woke up and I was crabby, and I wrote a mean tweet to The Miz. And I apologized to The Miz and…I sincerely apologize to you and all of Saudi Arabia.”
During the Night of Champions post-show, WWE Chief Creative Officer Paul “Triple H” Levesque praised Punk for what he said. “People grow, people change, people evolve, and they learn, and they learn a lot in life,” said Triple H. “Not only was I privileged to watch them this week as they prepared for this fight, I was privileged to watch two men grow as people, especially CM Punk.”