Turki Alalshikh Personally Requested Ex-WWE Star For Saudi PLE

A former WWE superstar got to be on a Saudi Arabian PLE thanks to the influence of a powerful member of the General Entertainment Authority.

Saudi Arabia has hosted WWE PLEs for nearly a decade. It has been widely reported that the Saudi Arabian General Authority’s Turki Alalshikh, who is the Chairman of the General Entertainment Authority, wields significant influence over WWE shows on the card.

An example Turki’s power was on display at the WWE Night of Champions 2023 PLE when former WWE superstar Mustafa Ali got to challenge Gunther for the Intercontinental Title.

While Gunther and Ali went on to have an entertaining match that went about 10 minutes, Gunther won with a Powerbomb, and Ali impressed the audience.

Mustafa Ali Got WWE Intercontinental Title Match Because Of Turki Alalshikh

On a recent episode of Insight with Chris Van Vliet, Mustafa Ali discussed how promoting Night of Champions and meeting Turki led to that Intercontinental Title match.

The backstory of this and I’ll keep it to this so I hope you guys can understand. I was sent to go do media, public relations for an upcoming event in Saudi Arabia called Night of Champions.

So I go there — I’m not on the show — I’m just going as token Brown guy. So I’m going there to make everybody happy. You’re always gonna relate to someone that looks you, right? So I do these little events and obviously, I’m very appreciative of the turnout here but the turnout there was insane.

They were expecting 500 people. There was like 3,000 people. So the guy’s looking at me, he’s like, ‘Oh, this Mustafa Ali, maybe he does the show,’ and I was like, ‘Oh, it’s the Night of Champions. You have to be a champion to be on the show. I’m not a champion,’ and I didn’t realize I was talking to like the President of the G.E.A., which is this General Entertainment Authority that basically runs the shows in Saudi Arabia and he goes, ‘You leave it to me. I talk to Vince,’ and I go, ‘No, no, no, no, no.’ He goes, ‘No, no, no. I’m going to request that you’re on the show.’

I think what happened was someone told Vince (McMahon) what to do, and he’s like, ‘Oh, okay.’ (h/T Fightful)

Turki’s home country, Saudi Arabia, hosted the WWE Royal Rumble for the first time in January 2026 and will also host WrestleMania 43 over two nights in 2027.