Catching Up #1: The Great Khali

I might be an extreme glutton for punishment but I’ve decided to watch a string of matches by none other than The Great Khali. Have I lost my mind? Maybe. But I had spent several years away from professional wrestling, especially during the mid- to late-2000s, and have honestly never seen any of these matches. I have seen Khali during the last few years but have missed out on most of his career. These matches might be as terrible as I think they are but they might also have some humor to them. Either way, I’m determined to find out.

My initial plan was to watch every WWE PPV event in which Khali battled in a WWE Championship or World Heavyweight Championship match, but that turned out to be far more matches than I bargained for. I then slimmed down my parameters further by omitting his World Heavyweight Championship PPV bouts and that left only 3 matches for this challenge. I think I can handle this.

The Great Khali challenged for the WWE Championship twice on PPV in 2007 and once in 2008. Both 2007 attempts were against John Cena while his 2008 one was against Triple H. Once again, I’ve never seen any of these matches. I have moments of both liking and disliking Cena and Hunter so I’m not sure what to expect on their end. My guess is that even a great effort from either guy won’t be enough to raise the match quality enough to be considered good. Will I be right?

I’ll record a brief thought before each of these then watch each match. I won’t write up any in-depth play-by-play but I’ll offer my reactions after I view them all. I’ll then offer my opinion of what each match should be rated on the typical 5 star scale. How low can my star ratings go? Let’s kick it off and find out.

John Cena vs. The Great Khali (Judgment Day 2007)

Pre-Match Thoughts: While watching the pre-match video package Jim Ross’ voice is overlaid where he talks about how nobody has been able to accomplish as much as Khali has in just 3 weeks. My wife momentarily burst into laughter then said, “Sorry, I laughed at the part about The Great Khali accomplishing anything.” Good one, honey.

There was also a Tale of the Tape, which revealed that Khali’s shoe size is 18EEEE. I don’t even know what that means. Does he do a finishing move that is foot based in which having four E’s is a clear advantage? He better.

Khali is way scruffier in the face then what I’m used to seeing and I think I like messy hair/five o’clock shadow Khali more than the clean cut Khali that I’m familiar with. Clean cut Khali’s jawbones are a little too defined for my tastes. I’m not sure why that matters to me but it does a little.

The Match: This was bad but I’ll give John Cena credit for his work. He tries a little too hard to sell for the man and it comes across as hokey because Khali doesn’t offer a whole lot. His clotheslines look good but that’s just about it for me.

Khali never once left his feet, which is odd. Even when he does a simple leg drop, he simply picks one leg up and drops on his butt. I understand that the guy has the look of a giant but did nobody care that he had the athletic skills of my Pawpaw in his 80s?

The one thing that made this match slightly fun was the crowd. There seemed to be an abnormally high amount of little kids in the arena and they were going ballistic for Cena. I’m not sure when in his WWE career that half the crowd started turning on him but it didn’t appear that he had any haters on this night. But then again I’m not sure how many smart fans would be concerned with whatever negatives Cena carries while he’s being contrasted with a brand new, main event ready, Great Khali.

Rating: ** I’m sure I’m being generous but Cena deserves a little credit. He had a big giant for him to slay and worked about as well as he could to present Khali as real threat. The crowd in attendance ate it up but crowd reaction only accounts for so much.

Mercifully, the match ended after 8:15 when John Cena applied the move that was then-called the STFU. Khali’s gigantic self made it impossible for his legs to not be under the ropes as he was tapping out to the submission move. The ref somehow managed to not noticed the positioning of the cedars so I’m guessing that’s what sets up the rematch I’m about to watch next.

John Cena vs. The Great Khali – Falls Count Anywhere (One Night Stand 2007)

Pre-Match Thoughts: The video package that preceded the match did show that Khali’s foot being under the ropes at Judgment Day was brought up after the fact. In the time since that event Cena has realized that he’s no longer scared of the big man. Jim Ross mentioned that Khali has still never been pinned which is way less impressive after seeing the guy tap out.

It’s also important to note that Khali at some point got a pin on Cena at a Saturday Night’s Main Event. I feel like I’ve missed out on that show. I was too young to watch it in its original run and wasn’t watching the product when they revived it.

The Match: Falls Count Anywhere is a tough gimmick. It doesn’t really add value to a wrestling contest. Wrestling fans are a huge part of the show and when you move the bout away from the one spot that’s most visible to everyone in the arena (the ring) you subtract an important part of the equation. This match suffered, but I guess it was going to suffer anyways with Khali in it.

While in the ring, Khali did a spinning kick on Cena that JR used as an example of his athleticism. Khali did that kick at the Judgment Day match and I will give him credit that it is the most believable move in his arsenal. But on the flip side, when Cena catches Khali’s overhand chop and there’s a moment of struggle between them it looks really dumb.

I really liked the crane that Cena stood on to FU Khali off of at the end. I didn’t watch the rest of the show and I assume that it’s just a prop that had no functional value, but I would like to think that Cena requested it. Like maybe Vince was trying to talk him out of the crane because it would be way too bulky, expensive, and really serve no purpose other than to make John look sort of cool for a moment that people won’t really care about in the long run. Then Cena would respond with, “Just like Khali, right Vince? RIGHT?!”

Rating: * 1\2 I dropped this match down a half a star rating because the stipulation is annoying to me. Falls Count Anywhere is a match that I groan about and this did nothing to help. It was the same formula of Cena being David opposite of Khali’s Goliath. It’s simple and logical, but still a rerun from the last match (…but now with a crane!).

Cena was able to carry Khali about 2 more minutes to a match time of 10:31. The crowd was still Cena-happy but once they left the ring I didn’t noticed any big pops until the FU at the end. I’m not sure how ambitious Triple H is but if he keeps Khali to about the same match time as Cena then he might be able do better with him. Plus, Hunter’s match occur the following year. Does Khali have time to improve his game?

Triple H vs. The Great Khali (Summerslam 2008)

Pre-Match Thoughts: The video package before the match was not overwhelming. I stopped watching all wrestling on regular basis around 2005 and one of the biggest motivators behind that decision was because I was so sick of guys like Triple H and The Undertaker in perpetual top spots. Triple H seemed always glued to a title and that’s the nostalgic feeling I’m getting for this point in 2008.

I don’t mind Triple H these days, for the record. I’m in the camp that thinks his backstage influence is truly a good thing. He’s not too bad of a heel authority figure, either. The dude can promo.

As far as Khali goes…I see he’s added Crush’s old skull-squeezing finisher to his move set, so that’s something. He used it against Trips during an arm-wrestling angle. And please let it be known that arm-wrestling angles are cheesy guilty wrestling pleasures of mine. I’d put them up there with pose downs, which are also stupidly delightful for me.

The Match: The simple story of this was that Triple H struggled to connect with his Pedigree in spite of Khali’s repeated head-crushes (JR called it a Vise Grip). Triple H won when he finally connected with it then followed with a pin.

The crowd had definitely turned on Khali by this point. There were two occasions of a “You Can’t Wrestle” chant. I feel a little bad for Khali but he was in the WWE Championship match. The fans are allowed to want the champ to be able to wrestle.

Rating: * I didn’t comment as much on this match because it felt so similar to the preceding two matches. The limitations of Khali don’t allow for much innovation from match to match. The match was timed at 9:18, which surprised me a little. I guess I was hoping that Hunter would take this as a challenge and try to drag him beyond 15 minutes.

Mitch’s Final Thoughts

As time went on, I think I looked at this as a John Cena vs. Triple H challenge of who could have the better match with Khali. I do think that both Cena bouts were better, but it really was almost the same match every time. Cena had the advantage of going first so I was more favorable when I rated his. I think I was highly generous at rating the first match with two stars, but I don’t think any one of them were below one star for me.

None of it was the worst wrestling ever but it definitely wasn’t great. If anyone of these matches were filler matches on Raw it would be more acceptable. The biggest reason to crap on these matches is because they all were WWE Championship matches on Pay-Par-Views that WWE expected people to pay far more than 9.99 for. If you, dear reader, were someone who paid full price I feel bad for you.

In Conclusion

So what do you think of this new series? I won’t write about watching things I’ve missed every week, but I’ll do it from time to time. I’ll try to pick more fan-favorite stuff, too. I know I missed a great series between Shawn Michaels and Chris Jericho, maybe that’ll be next. Feel free to recommend me things to watch and write about. I’m specifically looking at the years 2005-2012. I either wasn’t watching during those years or watched very little.

Feel free to comment below or find me on Twitter @MitchNickelson. Also, I wrote an article at WhatCulture recently titled 10 Things You Didn’t Know About The Bushwhackers. Did you know they once wrestled in a match that Dave Meltzer rated 5 stars? I didn’t before I researched that article.