During an appearance on The Kids on the Escalator podcast, Edge talked about his feud with Seth Rollins leading up to the WWE Crown Jewel PPV event in Saudi Arabia:
“I had SummerSlam coming up with Seth, and Charles Robinson wasn’t going to be there. I’m at the stage of my career where I’m a little picky when it comes to who refs because there is a comfort level and you find a zone together. It’s one less thing as a talent that I have to concern myself with because I know that person is going to be there.
Charles wasn’t going to be at SummerSlam and I talked to him about Jess, ‘should we give her a shot because I’ve watched her and she’s good. Let’s see how she does.’ He thought it was a great idea. We took a test run at SummerSlam and she is so confident and really good. She wasn’t shy or timid, she took control of the situation and I always appreciate when someone does that.
We had MSG and I said, ‘I think you have to do part two, kiddo.’ When they asked me about blowing off the story in Saudi Arabia, I wasn’t too keen on going, I’ll be honest, but as we talked and they said ‘we need it there,’ I said, ‘Lets get Jess to ref there,’ not knowing if we’d be able to. I just loved the idea of a woman being in control of two men in that country.
If it flew over a lot of heads, whatever, but for me, I can come back to my girls one day and tell them ‘I went over there.’ I think we did something cool. She was right there for everything, not overwhelmed by the moment, and stood up to the challenge. It was really cool to see.”
