In the most detailed first hand account of what happened with the WWE wrestlers and staff who were stuck in Saudi Arabia after Crown Jewel last week, AJ Styles jumped on his Mixer gaming stream last night (Nov. 3) and spoke on the situation.
The veteran both confirmed there was a mechanical problem with the plane, but also said there were other issues which haven’t been fully explained. He dismissed images conjured by the wildest conspiracy theories, and doesn’t know if there’s any truth to the talk of a disagreement between Vince McMahon & the Saudis being a factor. Styles does say he was very angry about the situation, and stated that if he eventually learns something about why they were delayed that angers him further, he’ll deal with it directly - intimating he wouldn’t air his grievances on social media.
Sounds like the “locker room leader” Karl Anderson was looking for has spoken.
Here’s what AJ said (transcription courtesy Fightful):
“We got to the airport, they weren’t letting us board.
What was the problem? Not real sure. I heard there was a fuel truck in the way and the guy who drove the fuel truck had left to go home. I know, this makes no sense. Why would he leave if he knows he has a plane that’s leaving? Then there were some paperwork issues. Finally, after 4-5 hours, we get on the plane. Then the ‘fuel something or another’ was broken.
People can say, ‘It wasn’t broken.’ But I talked to the pilot and he said, ‘Listen, there was a problem. That’s a real thing.’ The problem was, we spent all that time, from 1 o’clock to 6 or 8 in the morning, waiting to get on the plane and them telling us we can’t go anywhere because the pilots had timed out. The pilots can only go so long before they’re not able to fly because they’re not able to go 24 hours at a time. They had to go to a hotel, we had to find a hotel.
Were there guns and people like ‘EVERYBODY OFF THE PLANE!’ No, that never happened. Nobody threatened to kill us. Nobody was gonna get murdered.
I have no idea what happened between Vince [McMahon] and [Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman]. That’s not my job to say anything.
Was I pretty angry about not getting home because I missed my son’s wrestling match? You have no idea. This was out of our hands and out of the pilot’s hands. There’s no point in getting mad about something I have no control of.
We’ll find out as we go along why things happened. Or we won’t. I don’t know what’s going to happen going forward. I’ll deal with it when I need to. But I’m not gonna throw WWE under the bus either. It’s not gonna do me any good to throw anybody under the bus.
Until I know more, I’m not gonna say anymore or say anything negative. If I did find out and I was offended, I would go to the source.”