WWE’s Titus O’Neil: “I feel safer in Saudi Arabia than I do in a lot of places in the United States”

I think in the United States we have this mindset that we’re the greatest country in the world. And we are a great country. But people don’t move to the United States because we’re the greatest country in the world; they move because we have the greatest amount of opportunity.

The biggest difference between places like Japan, Saudi Arabia, the Middle East, and the United States are morals and convictions. They actually live by theirs—whether you like them or not. They’re going to pray five times a day. They’re going to stop during the day and do their thing no matter what and no matter who likes it or doesn’t.

You don’t hear about mass shootings in Saudi Arabia. You don’t hear about mass shootings in China. You don’t hear about mass shootings in Japan. I think if people went over to Saudi Arabia, or had a chance to go there, their views would change dramatically. And I’m not saying they get it all right—but we don’t get it all right either, to be pointing fingers at anybody.

When I went the first time that WWE ever went to Saudi Arabia, people had all these negative things to say. There were a lot of scare tactics and negative talk. I’m in my hotel room—it’s 1:00 in the morning—and I see kids running around on the beach. Kids. So I get up the next morning and ask my driver, ‘Hey, are you guys not worried about some of these kids getting assaulted, beaten, or kidnapped?’ He said, ‘No, because it’s an automatic death sentence.’

And I’m like, ‘So kids are safe over there, but kids are not safe in the United States?’ That changed my perspective of us going to Saudi Arabia for WWE. Yeah, it’s business—but it’s also changing cultures. When we first went over there, women were just being introduced to driving. Things are changing over there, and so many people have this mindset in America like, ‘Well, if somebody talks about race, that was so long ago.’ But it actually wasn’t. It’s 2025 now, and we’re still dealing with issues that trace back to the 1960s, ’70s, ’80s, and even today. We still have systemic issues with racism.

So, I’d rather go as a performer to a place where I’m going to be celebrated, not just tolerated—and where it’s going to be a first-class experience for everyone who chooses to come to the show. WWE is a platform that caters to one audience: the audience of one. No matter what color you are, no matter what religion you practice—or don’t practice—no matter where you come from, we have too many people on our roster from various places around the globe to be prejudiced, anti-Semitic, or any of those things.

If there’s ever a platform for us as a company to take and utilize to show what unity can look like—to show what good business looks like, to show what other cultures look like and how they embrace what we do—Saudi Arabia is definitely one of those places, in my opinion.”