Ari Emanuel confirms plans for WWE Crown Jewel in Saudi Arabia

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TKO President and CEO Mark Shapiro, TKO Executive Chairman Ari Emmanuel and WWE President and TKO member of the board Nick Khan pose for a photo during the UFC Freedom 250 Press Conference at the Lincoln Memorial on June 12, 2026 in Washington, DC. | (Photo by Chris Unger/Zuffa LLC via Getty Images) We’re two weeks away from WWE’s next scheduled premium live event in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Crown Jewel. As of this writing, that show is planned to go on Nov. 7 despite multiple official United States government warnings about the danger of traveling to the country due to ongoing hostilities in the region. Despite that, we haven’t heard much of anything from WWE or parent company TKO about plans for Crown Jewel’s return to Riyadh. Reports are the decision on whether that PLE happens in Saudi Arabia will ultimately come down to one man, TKO Executive Chairman Ari Emanuel. That’s because in addition to potentially impacting the safety of WWE employees, the call on Crown Jewel could have ramifications for other business TKO is planning to do with key Saudi figure Turki Al-Sheikh. Appearing on Fox News yesterday (Oct. 22), Emanuel was asked about TKO’s upcoming events in the Gulf States. His response essentially confirms what we’ve heard so far: they have back-up plans in place should the situation worsen, but as of now the show is planned to go on. “Right now, everything is still set. This weekend coming up in Abu Dhabi, we have a UFC fight. We have in the middle of November a Frieze art show. So far so good. Nothing’s been cancelled. “We have a whole team kind of working on this, and if that doesn’t happen, where we can move it. It’s a daily monitoring.” More as we have it. React to what we have so far in the comments below.