WILW: The Punjabi Prison was… good?
If we are being honest, and we’re friends so there’s no need to lie really, the Punjabi Prison was a much better idea in theory than in practice. The previous two matches, Undertaker vs Big Show at Great American Bash 2006 (it was supposed to be the Great Khali but he was pulled for Show) and Batista vs the Great Khali at No Mercy 2007, were well… they were fucking awful. Giant dudes trying to work within the confines of this particular match isn’t a terribly good idea. The match itself is pretty cool, all things considered. The ring is surrounded by a “bamboo” cage that has four vertically sliding doors that either competitor can call to be opened for sixty seconds. If one or both are able to get out through the door, then great. If not, the door slides shut and is locked for good. Because prison. If all four doors end up locked, as they inevitably do, whoever remains inside must climb out and over the inner cage. Once outside that inner cage, the wrestlers must then climb over a second, taller, bambooier, cage. This outer cage surrounds the original and only has the padded floor to bump on. To win the match, one wrestler must get to the outside and have both feet touch the floor. Cool, right?
Except it never was. The prison structure is so large and so, bambooey?, that the sight lines for the match are horrible. As such, it is not a good match to see live nor watch on TV, so basically every way we see wrestling. This time around they seemed to have figured a little bit out with the TV part however as I actually really enjoyed the match. Jinder Mahal, (I still don’t believe it), defended the WWE title against Randy Orton. Naturally, with Jinder being the cheating heel, the Singh Bros. got involved, including one of them, not going to bother to look up which, took a huge bump off the prison through the announce table. It was a very cool spot and got a good pop from the crowd. What really sold me on the match though was the ending. Jinder has been doing a great job playing the foreign heel champ even if no one really hates people from India. India is a big market for WWE so it makes sense for the current champ to be Indian. The only other big deal Indian wrestler WWE has featured was the aforementioned Great Khali. (no Tiger Ali Singh doesn’t count because no gives a cow’s teet about Tiger Ali Singh) So it made a ton of sense for Jinder Mahal to win due to surprise, outside interference from the Great Khali. It was a great moment and a fun way to end a pretty good show.
Check the video below and make sure to check back next week for another reason to love professional wrestling. Until then…
