I made a statement in a previous column about wrestlers being in the wrong roles, and I said that when used correctly, almost everyone can be successful. The Great Khali made his return to WWE television at the Royal Rumble, and looked strong there and this past week on RAW and Smackdown. Khali is another guy who could be a good character, but his role gets changed so much that it is hard for a lot of people to care. I thought the segment with Randy Orton on this week’s RAW was great; Khali wanted to show he could get the job done, then warned Orton not to mess with him, and Orton backed it up. This is a perfect way to showcase Khali in the future and keep him relevant but not make him a formulaic monster we have seen before.
Khali, Mark Henry, Kane and Big Show are already on the roster and the unstoppable monster role was most recently taken (and done quite well) by Mark Henry. Big Show beat him, and Kane is busy with Cena, so where does that leave Khali? You can only have him beat Jinder Mahal so many times so you need to give him something to do that uses his strengths and makes other people look good. Khali should be the ‘big kid on the block’ that shouldn’t be messed with, but can also be beaten if outsmarted, like Orton showed.
He debuted by manhandling the Undertaker and looked like an absolute freak, but after that he bounced around ECW before heading to RAW. Khali went in looking strong, but he ended like Umaga and others and was fed to John Cena, then he went to Smackdown and started a feud with Batista. This isn’t a fault of Cena or Khali, because they were just doing their job, but it’s not like it hasn’t happened before. Look at all of the wrestlers Undertaker faced off with and beat like King Kong Bundy and Giant Gonzales, and let’s not forget about the ‘power’ of Hulkamania. I’m not suggesting any of these guys are on the same level or anything, but the point is that the hero has always been around to vanquish the unstoppable beast.
Khali won the World Heavyweight Championship on Smackdown, and had a short feud with Jeff Hardy and HHH, but then he always gets shoved into another dumb feud. Khali’s feud with Kane was forgettable, and he should just be used to show his strengths like elevating talent like he did with Dolph Ziggler. I feel like Big Show took the role as the ‘easy-going fun until you mess with me guy’ when Khali could have done that too. He was funny in Get Smart and I usually laugh at the backstage segments they throw him in, like when he dressed up as the Tooth Fairy at the Rock’s birthday party. Alot of people just see him as a bumbling giant, but he could be used correctly and not just to gain a bigger Indian audience. Khali is going to be around for a while longer, and he may not be a technical marvel, but at the very least he provided one of the best one liners in a movie:
“He was like ‘Oh My Balls!'” – The Longest Yard
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