Updates: The NFLPA is pissed, and it appears we have an international incident!!

• The NFLPA, today, slammed the NFL Network for their coverage on the Trent Williams situation, feeling the Network took the side of the team which all but literally told Trent Williams to fuck off and die from a rare form of cancer.
• And the situation with the WWE and Saudi Arabia is...  out of hand.

The public face is something WWE is trying to put on to save Saudi Arabia's face because there are still eight years and sixteen scheduled shows the WWE would like to put on with the Kingdom.

However, it is now clear that an international incident all but certainly occurred at and after Thursday's card.

The WWE has been trying to gather video of it's Superstars stating it was, in fact, mechanical error and problems which left them in the country for more than 24 hours after their scheduled departure, which led to a complete rewrite of Friday night's show in Buffalo, NY.

A cursory view of the matter appears to indicate the following:

Vince was not paid an eight- or nine-figure amount for the last Saudi program, including television-rights fees in the Kingdom.

As a publicly-traded company, the WWE is required to file periodic financial statements with the Securities and Exchange Commission.  Wrestlenomics Radio (and I'm certain other wrestling "sheets") was able to find this information from the latest quarterly 10-Q filing of WWE, Inc. with the SEC:

p. 45 of WWE’s latest 10-Qhttps://t.co/a3RGNoL6L7 pic.twitter.com/xr82mqg97c

— Wrestlenomics Radio (@wrestlenomics) November 3, 2019

The circled portion appears to indicate that a nine-figure decrease in "cash generated from operating activities" was largely due to problems collecting money from "Super Showdown" in 2Q 2019 -- the THIRD Saudi blood-money event, held June 7 in Jeddah.

What appears to be the story the "sheets", especially Meltzer, is presenting as at least strong rumor is the following:

• Vince is owed a significant amount of money (figures vary from $75M to a figure of WWE Spanish-language announcer Hugo Savinovich states could be over $500M) from the House of Saud for the first three shows the WWE has put on for Saudi Arabia's propaganda mega-event, "Agenda 2030".
• There was word on an investor call that WWE received $60M of the money in October, but the amount owed appears to be significantly higher.
• Vince ordered, through his television production, the agreed-upon television programming of the event in Saudi Arabia terminated.
• This angered the Saudis, and it is unclear whether, if this is what actually happened, whether any of the event was actually aired.  Some reports state that the card was eventually aired, but on a delay -- the claim was 40 minutes, some heard it was two hours.
• Vince and the Saudi exchanged further "pleasantries", and Vince stormed off just after the card and flew out of the country.  (Given what would happen later, this has much of the stranded/detained talent PISSED!!)
• Brock Lesnar, Paul Heyman, Hulk Hogan, Ric Flair, and all but certainly outside talent Tyson Fury were already out of the country before the card ended.  (At least Lesnar and Heyman were confirmed, as they were in Buffalo for a segment to open Smackdown the next night.  Cain Velasquez, however, apparently was stranded.)
• Under the gun for time, a chartered aircraft had been commissioned for about 70 WWE wrestlers and 100 other WWE parties to directly go from Riyadh to Buffalo, NY.
• It now appears that the House of Saud ordered that plane grounded in retaliation for Vince's demands -- all but a hostage/kidnapping situation!
• The big fear on their part was they all knew that the women's match previously mentioned stepped on a few hardliner toes, and the fact that no one was being given a straight answer only increased fears that a hardline cleric with ties to the law in Saudi Arabia had ordered the lot arrested, with who knows what happening to Natalya (Neidhart) and Lacey Evans, the two women who performed the match.  There is at least one report that Saudi military police were near the plane on at least one occasion.
• The WWE presents this as the talent doing it themselves, but it appears that there were at least negotiations to get necessary talent to Smackdown for the next night.  A plane took off early Friday with a skeleton group of 12 necessary talents (including Roman Reigns, Baron Corbin, the New Day, the Revival, and Cesaro).  They didn't make it in time due to weather conditions, etc.  A number of the stranded talents didn't take too kindly to this -- since there were a total of 20 people on that first plane, the hashtag #NotTop20 has surfaced on Twitter and Instagram.
• All indications appear that the talent held in Saudi Arabia were taken care of -- they were taken to a hotel, told they were not allowed to leave the hotel, but told to order and have whatever they wanted to try to keep them as comfortable as possible.
• The talent was finally allowed to depart early Saturday, Saudi time, and got back to New York City about 10 in the morning Eastern time on Saturday.

Wow.

As if the situation with Vince and the Saudis could get any WORSE!!!

Stay tuned.   If this ever DOES become public, look out!