Dax Harwood Thought He'd End Up Dead If He Discussed WWE Saudi Arabia Plane Incident

Back in 2019, following WWE Crown Jewel in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, issues with a chartered flight for WWE talent resulted in a lengthy delay, causing major last-minute changes to a production of "WWE SmackDown" and reportedly leaving a lot of talent shaken up over the events. AEW star Dax Harwood, responding on Twitter to his former co-host Matt Koon, shared some concerns on what would happen if he openly discussed the incident on his recently-ended podcast.

"[Honestly], I was afraid if I told the truth about what happened, I would've been found dead somewhere in my house," Harwood wrote.

In the days following the incident, conflicting stories spread about the reasoning behind the flight delay, with the official statement citing "mechanical issues" while rumors placed the blame on a financial disagreement between the company and the Saudi government. WWE publicly denied that story, but wrestlers continued voicing frustration and doubt on social media.

Less than a year after the incident, following their WWE release, Karl Anderson and Luke Gallows shared their version of the 2019 Saudi Arabia incident on the "Talk N' Shop Podcast." Anderson confirmed that he heard about a disagreement on the production headsets revolving around Vince McMahon pulling the plug on the show's live feed, but could not confirm anything beyond hearing discussions about it. Anderson then stated they were stuck on the plane for a number of hours before heading back to a hotel and eventually leaving the country more than 24 hours after they were first scheduled to depart. Both men agreed on the belief that there was a purposeful effort to prevent them from leaving that night. Apart from that, few wrestlers have given a full account of their perspective of the events to the public.