Mansoor Abdul Aziz Al-Shehail, better known as Mansoor, is a trailblazer, as he was the first Saudi Arabian wrestler to be signed to the WWE where he performs under the moniker Mansoor.
The Riyadh-born 26-year-old showed off his skills at the WWE Crown Jewel event last year, and tours the world as a professional wrestler.
When he first started wrestling, however, he didn’t believe that he could turn it into a career. He recalls, “I didn’t want to be a WWE star until I was around 17 years old. I mean,
I was I really skinny kid and, looking at my faith, people like me are not successful in the field.”
He adds, “To my father, wrestling was just a platform for our race of people to be stigmatised, and I thought maybe in my own little way I could be part of a movement to chage that.” When he’s not inspiring locals or throwing his opponents into a backbreaker, here are his favourite things to do in Riyadh.
A timeless place for me is… Rock Park
There’s a park, it’s in the Diplomatic Quarter, I remember going as a child. I visited it a couple of years ago and I remember going back and thinking that it looked exactly the same as when I was a kid. It brought back so many memories of friends I haven’t seen in over a decade, and the experiences and the laughter that we shared – that was amazing.
My favourite restaurant is… Al Baik
I’ll go with Al Baik because there’s nothing like that in the States. It’s funny because I’m not really that sophisticated. I like my pizza, chicken sandwiches, and chicken nuggets, and when it comes to the Saudi food, I’ll let my mom make that. As a fast food snob, Al Baik is my number one, top-tier fast food.
I usually just get the chicken sandwich with no toppings, just chicken and bread, because I’m really picky. I’m kind of like the opposite of a vegetarian, the only time I eat vegetables is for my diet, but man if I could get away with it, there would be nothing on there but meat.
The biggest misconception about Riyadh is that… we’re not a modern city
I went to high school and college in the United States, and it’s funny to see what people can get away with thinking about Middle Eastern countries. It’d get asked “did you live in a house or was it a tent?” and “are there cars?” The perception of our civilisation kind of stops with Aladdin. It’s not from a place of hatred, it’s a place of not knowing. Every time I show people these amazing pictures of metropolitan Riyadh and the skyline – that was my computer wallpaper for a long time – people would ask: “Is that a city in Saudi Arabia?”
If I could take one thing from Riyadh whenever I travelled it would be…the history
When you’re in Riyadh, Makkah or Jeddah, you can feel the history in the ground. When you look at the buildings built a hundred years ago versus last week, they are both so accessible now and appreciated in different but almost equal ways – that’s something I really love. It’s so easy to connect with your the roots, the past and heritage.
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Looking for more cultural things to do in the capital? Click here.
