Summerslam 2017, or How to get through a 6 hour show with a little help from your friends at PWO

[cm funk]

 

Apparently there isn't even an India trip scheduled officially, just that they're in talks and they hope that Mahal as champ helps secure it. Or some shit like that. Meltzer and Alvarez both confirmed it. LOL

 

...

 

They've been torturing us for no reason at all?!?!

 

 

Yea, apparently there is an expectation that it will happen but the venue they want to run might be unavailable on those dates due to cricket or soccer or something. So nothing is officially booked as of now

[Jimmy Redman]

THERE'S NO END IN SIGHT!?!?

[The Thread Killer]

Jinder Mahal: Settle in for the long haul and embrace the bacne!

[MoS]

It's tentatively scheduled for the 2nd part of September, but yeah, nothing official. Cricket matches do not happen in the stadium they ran last time, and there is no football in September (and I do not think they run that stadium either) so I really don't know why they have not reached an official deal. Must be some contractual hurdles with the government (the stadium they ran in is under a government authority.)

[cm funk]

It's tentatively scheduled for the 2nd part of September, but yeah, nothing official. Cricket matches do not happen in the stadium they ran last time, and there is no football in September (and I do not think they run that stadium either) so I cannot think of why they have not made it official. Must be some contractual hurdles with the government (the stadium they ran in is under a government authority.)

 

 

On such short notice, should it happen, would you expect them to draw well? Is India famous for walkup/day of crowds like Mexico is? Forgive me but I don't know much about the habits of Indian sports/entertainment fans other than a cursory understanding of Bollywood and sports. Because in the States/UK and lots of other places events are announced well in advance and the majority of tickets and purchased months/weeks out. Because if the event is going to happen in roughly a month you'd think they'd lock it down by now and start moving tickets and doing publicity for it. Obviously Khali will help, and Jinder/Singhs to a degree, but you'd think they'd also want to send some guys over there in advance for a publicity tour. I don't know if Cena is on this tour, but you could send Big Show and Bayley and a couple others. It really feels out of sorts for WWE to be cutting such a major endeavour like this so close

 

Is the Indian government really that difficult to deal with?

[MoS]

The current Indian government is actually really conducive to foreign companies and deals, and has eased multiple regulations for ease of business, which is why it's surprising to me. Perhaps it is more about logistics and other international tours WWE is doing? I do not think Cena came last time, and he is easily the biggest draw here, so they would want Cena headlining here.

 

As far as walkup business is concerned, it depends on the event and the demographic. For movies, there is still a lot of walkup, since movies are watched by most people, of different demos and income groups. A WWE live even would be different I think, since the primary demo would beurban middle-class youngsters, so most of it will be advanced booking.

 

They have been sending guys on publicity tours quite a lot (one of my most surreal moments as both a cricket fan and a wrestling fan was watching The New Day in the studio during an Indian premier League cricket match - I never thought the twain shall meet) but the specific dates and publicity for them might be an issue if they go on sale on short notice. That said, because most of the targeted customers are on the Internet and have also probably "liked" WWE on Facebook, and because WWE is massively popular in India and we got zero events for 13 years, they will probably eventually sell out. Hell, compared to house shows in America, tickets were ridiculously expensive - the cheapest tickets, when taking into account price differential and cost of living, cost an equivalent of around $100 - and they still sold out anyway.

[cm funk]

Thanks for the insight. It's cool to get an "on the ground" perspective from someone there

 

BTW are you native Indian? Your English is really good, glad to have you as a member of this community with all us Yanks, Brits, Limeys, Scots, Aussies etc.

[MoS]

Yeah, born, raised, and living here!

[cm funk]

Cool.

 

I have a close relative who, along with his wife, visited India several years ago and had nothing but good things to say about it. Not to go into too much detail but he and his wife are sponsored cyclists who made friends with an Indian in their travels, and were invited to visit and stay with him and his family. They loved it and had a great time. This was a while back and I don't remember OTTH where they stayed and where they went, I'll have to ask him next time I see him

 

Unfortunately here in the US we generally hear the bad news from over there.....overcrowded slums, gang rapes & violence etc. etc. The bad drinking water. The sensational bad news.

 

I've been lucky enough to have the opportunity to travel to a number of foreign lands (Japan, Taiwan, New Zealand, Italy, France, Chile, Canada if that counts lol) and always enjoy and respect other cultures. I enjoy the culture shock and being a foreigner in a foreign land. I'd love to visit India someday if the occasion arises and there was a reason for it, I've always found it a fascinating country.....but no offense it wouldn't be at the top of the list of places I've never been to.....and it's tough to travel as much as I'd like due to a multitude of reasons (financial/health/family, etc)

 

Enough about me. Have you ever visited North America?

[C.S.]

Two very important questions for you, MoS:

 

1. How do you and the other 1.3 billion people in Jinder Mahal's home country of India really feel about the Modern Day Maharaja as your WWE Champion?

 

2. When Jinder Mahal speaks to those 1.3 billion people in his native language of Punjabi, what is he actually saying?

[The Thread Killer]

I work almost exclusively with recent immigrants from India, since the Pharmaceutical company I work with has a branch in Bangalore and staff are always transferring in. All those guys speak Hindi, not Punjabi. I assumed Jinder would speak that dialect. Of course, he was born in Calgary, Alberta...so I could also have been safe in assuming he'd come out on hockey skates, eating a back bacon sandwich, drinking a beer, and listening to Rush.

[C.S.]

I work almost exclusively with recent immigrants from India, since the Pharmaceutical company I work with has a branch in Bangalore and staff are always transferring in. All those guys speak Hindi, not Punjabi. I assumed Jinder would speak that dialect. Of course, he was born in Calgary, Alberta...so I could also have been safe in assuming he'd come out on hockey skates, eating a back bacon sandwich, drinking a beer, and listening to Rush.

 

He'll save that for the face turn.

[MoS]

I have been to America, on exchange for a semester. It was in Alabama. It was overall a beautiful place and I had a lot of fun, and it was a great semester, although I certainly met a few people with..highly interesting views. I had also visited NYC and LA as a kid, but this was before 9/11 so it was a completely different place. India is a tough country to visit if you are American. Whenever American friends and colleagues I know come here, I advise them to pack as much snacks as possible and to eat nothing but plain sandwiches for the first couple of days to ease themselves here haha.

C.S, Jinder does get coverage here; in fact, WWE gets coverage here probably because unlike the USA, wrestling is not taboo here (well, not as much) so PPVs get a mention and report in pretty "mainstream" papers, at least for their web edition. As far as Jinder is perceived, although I do not regularly follow the Hindi shows, from what I have seen, his very heelish actions are decried and considered unfortunate, but he is not treated as a full-blown heel. There is definitely some buzz about there being an Indian-origin WWE champion, but it's not nearly as much as you would expect, because Jinder was a jobber for like, a decade before this push. Stuff like him celebrating Independence day in the ring did get a lot of mentions, which helps because WWE's prime source of revenue here is TV rights. They earn a fuckload through rights here. I do not think he has a huge demand here, because the official WWE merchandising partner has just one t-shirt and no other gear listed for him, and very few other merchandise, mostly phone covers, so clearly there is not a lot of demand to watch the Maharaja. (For those interested, their website is - https://www.thesouledstore.com/wwe ) Also, while he speaks Punjabi, Hindi and Punjabi are close enough to understand what he says, unlike other Indian languages like Tamil, Malayalam, Bengali, etc.

 

If I had to make a guess, Khali is much, much more well-known and famous and popular than Jinder. He has appeared on so many news channels, and was even a part of the Indian version of Big Brother. This seems strange because Khali is probably a shittier wrestler than Jinder, but while I am now hoping the Jinder experiment dies quickly and quietly, I will always defend Khali getting a cup of coffee with SD's world title. It was covered on various news channels in a manner that was literally unprecedented. Fuck, I remember them even doing a profile on his potential opponents like "the HIGHLY dangerous Undertaker" It helped that he made his debut against Taker and went over, because for the previous generation of fans, Taker WAS WWE. Massively popular and well-known, "Undertaker" even appeared in a Bollywood movie where he was a pro wrestler and an evil henchman. Brian Lee played him, and he had a wrestling "match" with Crush, who was uncredited. (Wrestling trivia - Undertaker won the match by killing Crush and putting him in the casket) Debuting against him and then going over helped with his buzz tremendously, and I would say the massive increase in WWE rights fees (and demand for more WWE content) is linked to Khali getting over massively. 13 years ago, Raw and SD would air 2 weeks later, and would often be pre-empted by other programs. Now it airs live, including in Hindi on one channel, and has plenty of Indian talk shows and review episodes, which undoubtedly result in a lot of cash for WWE, and I really believe they have Khali to thank for that.

With Jinder it is not the same because not only is he not the first (or even Indian), he is also, unlike Khali, not a giant or a freak of nature. He is just a normal looking dude who got an inexplicably big push after being a jobber for a decade. His promos are entertaining, particularly when he is trolling American fans, but he is more dull than bad, and that is worse. He has also not had a super-worker like 2007 Cena carry him to surprisingly great matches. Nothing about him jumps out apart from his ugly acne, so it is understandable why he has not taken the country by storm. Perhaps a more talented worker could have done the "ordinary Indian making his way to the top in America much to the hatred of some" gimmick, which could have made him a face here and a heel elsewhere, but Jinder is not that guy. And honestly, his constantly dull matches are now boring the fuck out of me. Having bad matches with Orton is one thing, but a bad match with Nakamura a couple of weeks after Nak tore down the house with Cena? Urgh.

tl;dr - Not a fan, really, and I would wager if Cena was carrying the belt instead of Jinder, it would not have made a particularly significantly difference as far as business in India is concerned.

[MoS]

Sorry for the really long post above haha. Also, just found this cool article on a prominent Indian news channel website about the two Undertakers storyline. http://www.indiatvnews.com/entertainment/hollywood-the-story-of-two-the-undertakers-brian-lee-and-mark-callaway-375481

[The Thread Killer]

Sorry for the really long post above haha.

 

No, I found that really interesting.

[Jimmy Redman]

Khali is probably a shittier wrestler than Jinder,

 

Untrue.

[MoS]

Hey I am probably the biggest Khali fan on the board, so I am not going to debate that one.

[Cap]

 

What would have been the point of this Jinder thing if they took the belt off him before the India trip? That was - I thought - pretty clearly the point. He will drop it shortly after I assume. I still don't think he has been as bad as people say, but that is just me. He is a fine old-school heel champ who I think has overachieved in the roll. Not saying that was a great match or anything, but it is far from the biggest thing to be concerned about.

 

It's not even so much that he retained the title. The match was boring, bland and uninspiring, and Mahal didn't even really have to cheat to beat Nakamura, unless you count the minor distraction by the Singh Brothers. He just hit Nakamura with that rather unimpressive looking move (which I assume is his finish) and pinned him. Nakamura did not come out of that match looking great. You can put some of that on Nakamura and the whole "Nakamura is lazy and coasting now" theory, but I think if they wanted to keep Nak as a legit Main Event level guy, they should have made it look a lot harder for Mahal to beat him.

 

I just don't understand the logic of giving Nakamura a major rub like he got when Cena put him over clean a couple of weeks ago, only to turn around and have him lose in such an unimpressive looking fashion when he gets his title shot. Unless you buy the theory that Vince was really mad at him about the supposedly botched suplex spot in the match against Cena.

 

I guess I am just desensitized to this sort of nonsense from the WWE. I don't dissagree with any of this, but I also don't think Mahal has been bad at his job since getting the belt. He was a jobber, thrown into the main event (with Randy Fucking Orton for christ sake), given the belt and the challenge of looking legitimate, and then stuck in uninspired trap booking with a fan favorite/internet darling. Who would look good in this situation? Ohh and put that on top of the fact that its summer slam so the whole thing gets directly juxtaposed to some of the hottest wrestling the WWE has put on in years and pretty easily (at least imo) the best match of the year for the company in the Raw main event scene. Again, I am not saying the match was good, but it was generally unoffensive to me until the end (which you are right, should have been different). I just blame the the impossible position he was put in and the obstacles they put around him.

 

That said, he did jack up the finisher and I won't be a Jinder apologist for that.

[Gutenberger]

I've nothing to add that hasn't been said, really.

Hated the show up to the Banks/Bliss match. Had a break, ate something, came back and the show started to pick up from there. That indian Guy winning against Nak is BS and I really didn' want Lesnar to leave te main as champ as it unfolded, it felt kind of flat to me, and I think Raw needs a champ who's there all the time.

 

One thing I want to mention is the virtual indestructibility of the german announce table. The other tables become flattened regularly, but ours keeps on standing. Out of the three tables at ringside, two got destroyed this time around. And then Braun's standing there like "Yeah, I'm not gonna be able to destroy that one. i'll just throw it on Brock, he won't be able to lift it."

It's become a running gag with a friend and me and has me laughing every time.

[sek69]

They should start playing up the table was built with superior German engineering and is therefore indestructible.

[cm funk]

Hey I am probably the biggest Khali fan on the board, so I am not going to debate that one.

 

That IS debatable. I'm a huge Khali fan!!! And not ironically. Sure, he's limited in what he can do, but he's still f'n awesome. I marked out so hard when he came back to help Jinder win the Punjabi Prison match. Should have seen it coming, but I didn't, total surprise.

 

Khali is sort of like Andre. He's a GIANT, and it's not hard to work with a dude that size if you're a good pro

 

Reminds me that I haven't watched that PPV match with Cena in forever. He had good matches with Rey too.

[Jimmy Redman]

I think the three of us constitute the biggest group of Great Khali fans ever assembled in one place.

 

Outside of India of course.

[Alucard]

Khali fan here as well, reading that post about the coverage when he won the title is awesome. Wish he stuck around after returning last month, at least as a special attraction. Aside from the great Cena matches, thought his title run and feud with Batista was a lot of fun, really dug the match vs HHH at Summerslam the following year too.

[KawadaSmile]

Khali's run is pretty underrated. Surely he couldn't move but he was AMAZING to watch, truly a special attraction.

 

Plus he had that very dope match against Cena.

[DMJ]

I don't watch the weekly TV because who has to time for it, but has Khali appeared since that last Network special? I wasn't dying to see Orton/Khali or anything, but it just seems kinda silly to only bring him back for one cameo and then drop it. Khali and Jinder vs. Orton and Nak seems like a natural TV main event.

 

Full review on my blog shortly. Not a great show, but I'd probably have it well above last year's absolute shit show and probably the last two Manias too. I mean, looking back at those specific cards, I don't recall a single match being as good as the main event. Both Charlotte/Sasha and Cena/Styles from SummerSlam 2016 were, in the end, not even the best matches they'd have against eachother while this one might've been one of the top 2-3 fourway matches I've seen.