wrestling / Columns

High Road/Low Road 7.27.07: The Great Khali as World Champion

July 27, 2007 | Posted by Sat

Welcome back to the High Road/Low Road! A brief explanation of the column: Uncle Trunx takes the Low Road (negative view) on angles, gimmicks, and other wrestling related “stuff” while Sat takes the High Road (positive view).

The Results for the Long Impact Match:

High Road: 62%
Low Road: 22%
Both Roads: 16%

Apologies that we’ve been “off the air” for a few weeks; Trunx has had some sort of complaint. He’s always got some sort of complaint, I hear you say! Enough of that, on with the emails…

E-Mails:

These are all of the e-mails that we received this week. We do not respond to the actual e-mail, but the reply to your e-mail will be below.

Jarkota Writes:

I chose the High Road mostly because it was something I hadn’t seen in years, if ever. I can recall stories of the hour-long NWA matches ‘back in the day’ and it was nice to see something of a throwback to that era. As far as the interference goes, it was advertised as a No-DQ match, and given the main competitors in this match (Angle and Christian), it’s perfectly reasonable for other wrestlers to want to hinder someone’s chances (i.e. like Abyss wanting to keep the title off of Christian). All in all, I found this an enjoyable show and hope it ends up on a DVD at some point.

Sat: I think all of the interference did make sense and the ones that didn’t were explained the following show. I would be surprised if this match makes it on a DVD, but we can all hope that it does.

Uncle Trunx: I don’t think the match will make it to a DVD; long matches seldom do, long TV matches seemingly never. I base this only on my own limited knowledge, and I look forward to the replies pointing out the amount of long TV matches there are on DVDs.

Don Rogers Writes:

After seeing the add for the biggest fan contest of course I followed the links made my video showed all my WWE swag and auto graphs told my stories of how I’ve watched for over 20 years slept out side the WWE store just to meet Mr. Kennedy after a 7 hour bus did about 20 takes so I got my video just right clicked submit and TAH-DUH Canadians may not enter the contest which I find really odd considering the fan base wrestling has in Canada and all the wrestling talent that has come from Canada . This has damn soured me on the WWE completely it is with great disgust that I even Write this letter I wonder how WWE would take it if Canadians told them (WWE) to go screw them selves the way WWE did to us HMMMM how would there ratings look . One pissed off fan

Sat: I think that Canadians should be able to participate in the contest, but I guess the WWE wants to keep it only in America. I also think the WWE knows that the Canadians are not going to tell the WWE to screw themselves because Canada has practically forgiven the WWE for Montreal.

Uncle Trunx: I’m in the UK, and we don’t get to enter anything either. You have my sympathy. I turn my anger into low road columns…

The Great Khali as the World Champion

Special Thanks to John Meehan for the logo.

High Road:
There were really only two options that should have won this match. These two guys are Mark Henry or the Great Khali. Both of these guys had to win because both of these guys would have been able to face three different opponents that they could have face. The three opponents that they could have face would have been Batista, Kane, and Rey Mysterio. The reason why the Great Khali needed to win the World Title over Mark Henry will be explained in the next High Road.

Low Road:
If the two choices for world champ are Mark Henry or Khali, it’s a shallow talent pool indeed. Surely there are other prospects within WWE who are good enough? If they can’t find anyone on Smackdown, there are two other brands to look at. They did it to give Edge the World Title and could easily do so again.

High Road:
The Great Khali has been a heat machine as of late and I think he deserves a ton of credit for it. We see a ton of people in the WWE struggling to get heat and this guy manages to get instant heat and a ton of it. And the thing that makes this more impressive is that he isn’t playing the evil foreigner where he bashes America. This always occurs with a foreign wrestler and it hasn’t happened with the Great Khali because he has managed to get the fans to hate him without resorting to cheap tactics.

Low Road:
He doesn’t need cheap tactics, he gets heat for being a giant monster. The “normal” fans boo him because he’s a giant monster who crushes their heroes. That’s the oldest and easiest form of heat there is, given that it was used in David vs Goliath.
The internet fans boo him because he does three moves, badly. His sole claim to championship gold is that he’s very big. That upsets those who would rather see a world champion who can work entertaining matches and cut promos. Khali can do neither.

High Road:
The WWE had an interesting article where it mentioned that within six months of getting the title, the person will get injured. Now, I think that this is pure coincidence, but it something that was going to get mentioned by the IWC. Now, the WWE could have put the title on Batista, Kane, or Mark Henry, but those guys are bound to get injured. I seriously believe that the Great Khali will not get injured and this will put an end to this so called curse.

Low Road:
I truly hope that in 6 months, this title reign will be forgotten and we won’t have to even consider such a “curse”. The prospect of a 6 month Khali title reign makes me want to gouge my eyeballs out with a spoon.

High Road:
The biggest guy should always win the Royal Rumble or a Battle Royal, but we never see it happen. The Great Khali become World Champion, by doing what he should do every time and that is win any Battle Royal that he participates in.

Low Road:
Or, as an alternative, everyone else should gang up and eliminate him. That’s the traditional and believable way to get giants out of such matches. If they eliminate him that way, they can put the title on someone who can carry it well and work great matches as champion rather than having to put it on the biggest monster. Another thought is that rather than use a battle royal to decide the champ, they could use a one night elimination tournament. That way, it would be more credible for someone with stamina and endurance to win rather than the biggest guy. This worked for Randy Savage at Wrestlemania IV and Bret Hart at the first televised King of the Ring tournament. It would also be a good way to get the focus on the wrestling and the people who can work a great match rather than the biggest, freakiest looking guy. This would be especially valuable, I think, given the current attitude to wrestling in the media at large.

High Road:
I have not heard this at all, but this definitely deserves to be mentioned. The Great Khali winning the World Title is huge because this gives the WWE a foothold in India and it is bound to draw Indian fans to the WWE. India has the second largest population in the world, so this allows for them to become WWE fans. Plus, I can speak for experience as my dad is now interested in SmackDown, just because of the Great Khali’s win. Before his win, my dad would watch five maybe ten minutes a week. I am sure that there are more Indian fans like my dad that will be interested in watching the WWE.

Low Road:
By all means give an Indian wrestler a prominent spot on the show. Indeed, Khali deserves his place on the show; he’s a freakishly large monster who, used sparingly, can come off as an incredible threat to anyone. However, until he learns more than three moves, and until he can make those look half decent, he really shouldn’t be the guy carrying the whole show. The argument about gaining fans from a particular country wasn’t persuasive enough to get Davey Boy Smith a world title, and he’s 100 times the wrestler that Khali is. It also wasn’t enough to get Andre a title, and he’s a far better wrestler and a giant.

High Road:
The last two High Roads I got from reading John Meehan’s MeeThinks Saturday Spectacular. Thanks again Meehan. The first one is that the WWE is getting focus from the mainstream media about steroids in the WWE. It makes sense for the WWE to make the Great Khali the World Champion because he naturally big and he hasn’t taken steroids to get that big.

Low Road:
He hasn’t taken steroids? How do we know that? I was under the impression that WWE’s wellness program allowed ceetain substances if prescribed for an injury; Khali did suffer an injury last year unless I’m mistaken and was also taken off the road for a wellness violation last year.
Also, given that freakishly large wrestlers are likely to attract the media spotlight whether they’re clean or not, I feel they’d be better off going in more of an early ‘90s direction, pushing smaller guys who can work a more technical style. Khali as champ plays right into the hands of the people attacking WWE for demanding freakishly large, disproportionate wrestlers. Khali is about as large and disproportionate as it gets.

High Road:
The Great Khali has won practically every match in his WWE career and he has only lost three times. These three losses were to the Undertaker and to John Cena. That is flat out amazing and just for these reasons he deserves to be champion. Plus, the person who beats him now will look good because they will be one of three people that have beaten the Great Khali and two of those are the best that the WWE has to offer.

Low Road:
As I said above, that argument wasn’t enough to get the late, great Andre the Giant a world title reign and Andre at his worst was a better wrestler than Khali. It’s easy enough to build up a monster without the need to put the big belt on him, and arguably much better to do so; as a world champion, Khali will be expected to wrestle in the main event. Surely keeping him a little lower in the card, where a shorter match is more acceptable would help him develop his skills whilst continuing to build him as a monster. As it is, he’ll either have to lose the belt soon which will weaken him as a monster, or he’ll have to work main events for a while which will expose him as a poor wrestler. Neither is a good thing and works to the detriment of Khali, his opponents, the rest of the roster and the fans. That, to me, is a low road.

Are you taking the High Road or the Low Road?

High Road/Low Road: The Great Khali as the World Champion
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High Road/Low Road Plugs

We are taking the high road on these articles so you should read them…

Alex Mattis’ The Best of the Rest
Andy Clark’s The Shimmy
Ari Berenstein’s Column of Honor
Bayani Domingo’s Truth B Told
Buy or Sell
Daniel Wilcox’s Schmozzes and Screwjobs
David, Alex, & Zach’s The Triple Threat
Fact or Fiction
J.D. Dunn’s Kayfabe Chronicles
Jeff Small’s The Thursday Small For All News Report
Joe Estee’s Keys to the Game
John Meehan’s MeeThinks Saturday Spectacular
Jordan Linkous’ Why I Love Wrestling
Julian Williams The Top Ten
Larry Csonka’s 4R’s, 4R’s PPV Edition, & Wrestler of the Week
Leonard Hayhurst ‘s The 10th Day News Report
Mathew Sforcina’s Evolution Schematic
Matt Adamson’s Destiny
Matt Short’s Navigation Log
Michael Weyer’s Shining the Spotlight.
Mike Minotti’s Can They Be Champ?
O’Dog’s Forgotten Goodness
Phill Feltham’s The Quick Talkdown
Prag-Thomlison’s Hidden Highlights
Rob Halden’s You’re An Idiot and Here’s Why
Ron Gamble’s Just S’pose
Ronny Sarnecky’s The Piledriver Report
Ryan Byers’ The Custom Made News Report
Samuel Berman’s The Independent Mid-Card & The Box in the Attic
Stephen Randle’s Wrestling News Experience
Steve Cook’s Ask 411
Stuart Carapola’s Friendly Competition & That Was Then,
Wilcox-Halden-Adamson’s The Fink’s Payload
Zac Calhoun’s The Ripple Effect

There are other articles that we didn’t list, so check them out as well.

E-mail us your reasons for taking the High Road or the Low Road and suggestions for future High Road/Low Road at [email protected]. Your reply will be included in next week’s column.

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