If you're from the Middle East this is how you're portrayed.
But I seek and I aim to prove him,
as well as many other people who believed that about what we do, wrong.
[MUSIC]
>> [FOREIGN] Once again welcome to
Dubai and welcome to the VLN,
it's a great pleasure to have you here.
How's it going here so far?
>> Good, good, I've been having fun and I'm just checking out the sites.
>> At Super ShowDown you won the 50 man battle royal and
it's happened in your yard in your home country.
Did you expect it and how did it feel like?
>> I definitely did not expected I didn't even know if I was gonna be in the battle
royal until maybe a day before.
So I was just hoping that I would get the opportunity to do that.
I didn't know that my family was gonna be in the front row.
I knew they were gonna be in the crowd.
I didn't know that my older brother, my father, my sister,
my niece, and for them to be there, and for
them to be there when I jumped into their arms like It's a dream come true for me.
But not just because I got to make everyone proud but because I
got to share that experience with my family, and with everybody who was there,
everybody who was watching for them to see a moment like that in history.
It's only gonna be the first of many.
>> Talking about your family, what was their reaction after the win and
what did they tell you?
>> They couldn't believe it, I mean they were so
happy like you can see in the video my brother is crying.
[LAUGH] My papa, he was raising my arms and screaming.
And my brother is a big, big WWE fan.
But my father he didn't know really much about it.
He only ever saw it when he was at an event in Florida,
a long time ago, it wasn't WWE.
And he saw someone was being a chef and they were like a bad guy and
he said not for us, this isn't for me,
if you're from the Middle East, this is how you're portrayed.
But I seek and I am to prove him as well as many other people who
believe that about what we do wrong.
>> What was the first thing you've done after you went backstage?
>> Well I thanked Mr. McMahon, I shook Mr. McMahon's hand,
it was a complete honor, I had never met him before.
He was always this big figure that you would just imagine, what is he like?
And you go up to him, he's like, thank you.
[LAUGH] It's just that he's a man.
And yeah, I was just kinda buzzing, I couldn't even really think about,
I didn't wanna check my phone, cuz I knew it was gonna be too much for me to handle.
And I didn't wanna just sit there all day, I wanted to go around and
ask people how it went and what they thought about it, so yeah.
>> Tell us more about your background, where were you raised,
how was it like in your family, you have a lot of siblings.
>> Well, I grew up in Riyadh, and
then I moved to California when I was around 11 years old.
But my father stayed for work to support us.
I have two little sisters who came with me to America, and
then I have an older sister and three older brothers who stayed in Saudi.
>> Growing up what was the major challenge that you faced, like in your way here?
>> I've always kind of been torn between two worlds,
>> Yeah.
>> America and Saudi.
And it's difficult because when I moved to America,
I was kind of too Saudi to be American.
And then when I go back to Saudi people would be like you're too American.
Yeah, so I think coming over the I guess the difficulties in
the issues of how people perceive me and
realizing that I'm just my own person, I have my own identity,
even if it's different from most, I should be proud of that.
I should value the experiences I have in both very different places.
And it's because of that, that I've found my position and my dream job.
I had experience with performing in the ring, so it helped me a lot in my tryout,
and I think that's part of the reason why I'm here.
>> Who and what made you decide to become a WWE superstar?
>> So I actually didn't think I would ever become a superstar.
I thought I could become a manager,
a referee- >> [LAUGH]
>> A writer,
because when I was younger I just looked at myself and I said,
you're not a superstar, you're not a person who's in the ring doing the things
that they do because you don't look like it, maybe you don't sound like it.
And where you're from, they don't become superstars.
But I wanted to be in WWE so bad in any way, I'll be a janitor,
[LAUGH] I'll do anything.
And then I remember watching SummerSlam 2013 with my sisters.
We were huge Daniel Bryan fans, I still am.
And when he won the WWE championship from John Cena, I remember we were going crazy.
And that's when I realized that the only person keeping me from achieving my dream
is myself.
No one's telling me, no you can't do it.
I was the one telling myself, you know what I mean?
I was the person saying, it's not for you, this isn't your fate,
this isn't your future.
So when I realized that I'm keeping myself from doing what I love,
I'm keeping myself from reaching my goal.
That's when I was like, I just cut it out of my system completely and
I worked hard and I pushed hard to be able to do it.
[MUSIC]
That's a difficult question.
I've always been a SmackDown person myself,
I always loved SmackDown probably because,