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SAUDI ARABIA APOLOGIZES FOR THE HALF NAKED FEMALE WRESTLERS.




Riyadh, SAUDI ARABIA:
Saudi authorities apologized Saturday for videos with scantily clad female performers shown at a pro-wrestling event, highlighting the tension the ultraconservative kingdom faces in opening its society while respecting cultural and religious restrictions.



The promotional ad was aired between wrestling matches at the World Wrestling Entertainment Co.’s Greatest Royal Rumble, a pay-per-view, government-sanctioned event that Saudi authorities said was the first live wrestling event with women allowed to attend at ringside.

The audience’s men cheered as close-up clips of female wrestlers in skimpy outfits filled a big screen in King Abdullah Sports City stadium in Jeddah. The WWE event was broadcast on Saudi state television.

Saudi Arabia’s General Sports Authority, which sanctioned Friday’s event, issued a statement on Twitter apologizing for “the scenes of indecent women that featured in an ad before one of the matches.”

The authority said it would ensure such scenes didn’t appear in future events. “This is a commitment that the authority will be continuously vigilant about throughout all its different activities and events,” the Twitter message said in Arabic.

The WWE didn’t immediately provide a comment when contacted Saturday. The WWE typically has women wrestle in live matches, a popular part of its program in the U.S. and elsewhere. The company refrained from having women wrestle each other Friday night at the request of Saudi authorities, but the promotional ads depicted them.

John Cena, right, competes with Triple H during the World Wrestling Entertainment Greatest Royal Rumble event in the Saudi coastal city of Jeddah on Friday.
Image: STRINGER/AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE/GETTY.

The controversy over the WWE video comes a week after the Saudi sports authority ordered a fitness center closed and a gym instructor fired after she appeared in a promotional video wearing form-fitting workout clothing.
The sports authority said then that it “affirms its efforts to stop any overstepping aimed at harming society and breeching its modesty.”

The incidents show how the kingdom’s cultural boundaries under Islamic law are difficult to ignore, even as its leadership tries to loosen up and create opportunities for a population that is 70% under the age of 30 years old.

The WWE matches were meant to show the strides Saudi Arabia is making in building an entertainment industry after decades of enforcing strict interpretations of Islam that included banning cinemas and limiting the mixing of genders in public.

Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the 32-year-old day-to-day ruler of the kingdom, has sought to soften the image of his country by opening movie theaters, planning futuristic new cities and giving rights to women. This year, women have been allowed to attend soccer matches for the first time in decades and will soon be allowed to drive.

Friday night’s event was the first time women were allowed to attend a live pro-wrestling event. Pro-wrestling has been a cult hit in Saudi Arabia, though female fans were often frowned on for enjoying a spectacle that involved half-naked men bashing each other.



The sports authority’s statement Saturday was likely a pre-emptive attempt to subdue any backlash against the WWE event. The Saudi government and he WWE said they signed a 10-year agreement to produce events in the kingdom.

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