During an appearance on the Throwing Down w/ Renee & Miesha podcast, former WWE announcer Renee Paquette talked about traveling to Saudi Arabia when she worked for WWE:
“I’ve been to Saudi Arabia twice. I went for, not the first time WWE went over there, but they went over there and did a show, but the first time they did like the television PPV version of it. There were no women on the show. I was the first female to go over and get to be a part of a show like that and be able to perform in some capacity. Of course, I was on commentary with Michael Cole and Corey Graves and was able to call what would end up being like a 4-hour PPV. I’ve been able to do that twice now. Now, women have wrestled over there. That has changed. One of the times we went over there, we brought over Natalya and Alexa Bliss. They were suited and booted waiting to go, like waiting for the sports commission to say if they were going to give them the green light to wrestle, and then they ended up pulling the trigger and they weren’t able to actually wrestle while we were there which obviously was a bummer. As WWE is trying to break more ground and trying to advance the sport in Saudi Arabia, it was cool to have the women there anyway and making these milestones.”
“It’s a life experience. That’s how I looked at it. It was scary before I went because you hear these stories. You’re not really sure what you’re getting into. You’re coming into it so Americanized trying to adjust and be respectful to their culture and to their country. My husband came with me. Jon came with me the first time I went. The second time, I don’t think he was with WWE anymore as he already left. The first time he came over with me, and he actually wasn’t even booked on that PPV. He just came to be there with me because from what I understood, women can’t be out in public unless they’re escorted by a man. I really didn’t feel like I had to jump through those hoops. Granted, I had arrived on our chartered jet with 30 other men or however many people were on the card. I had my own private dressing room, Hulk Hogan had his dressing room, and everyone else was doing their own thing. As I was getting ready to go over there, yes, I was nervous, and I was scared because I didn’t know what I was walking into. I ordered this dress on Amazon. It was a high collared, turtleneck style black dress that went all the way down to my wrists and all the way down to my ankles to be fully covered. Also keep in mind, if you combine a Las Vegas summer with a Texas summer, that’s what the weather is like there. It was hot as hell and so humid as well. I’m sweating. My eyelashes are running off in every possible direction. It was so hot. But the thing that was really cool is yea, you go into it feeling really nervous. Holy sh*t, I’m going to Saudi Arabia. Am I in over my head? What am I getting myself into? But getting to the hotel, we had beautiful accommodations. We stayed at a Four Seasons Hotel. The best food layout you could ever imagine. The spread was incredible. They treated us so well. Even from getting off the bus into the hotel, there were fans there that wanted to meet us. People were so thankful and grateful to have a woman on the broadcast. I had men and women from Saudi Arabia saying how cool I was there and got to be on the show.”
