We got early word yesterday about Turki Al- Sheikh and the Saudi General Entertainment Authority*’s plans to lure pro wrestling’s biggest names out of retirement for the WrestleMania that’s all-but-confirmed for Saudi Arabia in 2027.
Today (Sept. 12), a more detailed report on one of those big names is out from the same source. In the new Wrestling Observer Newsletter, Dave Meltzer writes that his sources at the Saudi GEA told him “negotiations for Dwayne Johnson were advancing” and that “the deal
was close to being finalized.”
Terms of that deal will impact the final price tag Al-Sheikh pays for a weekend’s worth of events around WrestleMania 43. That will be in excess of $100 million, but Meltzer claims that “the final payment number for the show will be affected by whether or not they get The Rock in the main event. The idea is that the individual payoff for Johnson would be multiple times that of any pro wrestler for any event in history.”
If they can negotiate a deal with the buzzed-about thespian, the Saudis reportedly hope to have him face one of the two stars we all thought he set-up feuds with at or after WrestleMania 40 — either Cody Rhodes or Roman Reigns.
It’s stressed that this is coming from people close to or at the Saudi GEA and not WWE, so we’ll see if this is just billionaire fantasy booking. But at this point it does feel like there’s a good chance we’ll see The Rock — and just about any other living legend you (or His Excellency) can think of — at a stadium in the KSA sometime in early 2027.
* A name I’d never really thought much about before, but given (gestures broadly to… everything) now strikes me as ridiculously Orwellian.
