Great Khali - booking method good?

['Foretold' Joker]

Let's say for one second we ignore Khali's inability to wrestle. Do you think the actual way of booking him as a monster and winning the title was good?

By this I mean if you took the exact story/plot beats of the initial heel monster Khali run and replaced him with a big man who can work in the ring like a modern day Man they Call Vader, would we be invested in that much more?

[Mozenrath]

It still kind of blows my mind that Cena vs Khali ended up actually being a pretty solid feud, but I guess it helps that it was obviously a very familiar formula to WWE. Like, they've been booking those kinds of programs for many decades, so it ought to be good.

["Gizzark" Mike Wronglevenay]

Winning the title in a battle royal I think is a shitty way to win a belt, especially a world title, whoever wins it.

[4real]

If Khali was good then I would have had him win the title in a more dominating fashion than a battle royal. Maybe beating Cena for the title and Cena having to chase Khali would have been a worthwhile story.

I swear Khali changed brands every few months in his first year. He was all over the place. Debuted on Smackdown in mid 06, in ECW by December, feuding with Cena on Raw after Mania and then World Champ on Smackdown by July.

[Clash, Never a Meter Maid]

Nah, I felt Khali would probably could have been a decent draw regardless if he was champion or not. I don’t like to bust on his skill level too much because he was obviously physically limited in what he could do in the ring, even more so than other giants.

But ideally, I’d have picked Finlay to win that battle royale, because as solid a program as Cena was able to get out of Khali, he would have put on even better matches with Fit. Khali would have been a one-off challenger to John were I booking it.

[Deleted]

Jun 15, 2021 10:21:21 GMT -5 Clash, Never a Meter Maid said:

Nah, I felt Khali would probably could have been a decent draw regardless if he was champion or not. I don’t like to bust on his skill level too much because he was obviously physically limited in what he could do in the ring, even more so than other giants.

But ideally, I’d have picked Finlay to win that battle royale, because as solid a program as Cena was able to get out of Khali, he would have put on even better matches with Fit. Khali would have been a one-off challenger to John were I booking it.

Those were separate; he challenged Cena like a year before winning the battle royal. And I can kind of see why they'd go with Khali over Finlay in that case because Batista vs. Finlay had been done to death around that point.

["Evil Brood" Jackson Vanik]

I thought his title run wasn't terrible. He actually had a brief moment that year where he managed to learn how to work decently for his size. Unfortunately his body just fell apart soon after. I think like others have said, he could've been given a stronger title win to start the reign. But he was largely booked the right way. He'd kill dudes on TV. Built up by the announcers as unstoppable. I probably would've fed him someone higher than Kane on the totem poll before he lost it to make the win mean more but it was largely fine.

[nickcave]

Jun 14, 2021 7:21:58 GMT -5 Mozenrath said:

It still kind of blows my mind that Cena vs Khali ended up actually being a pretty solid feud, but I guess it helps that it was obviously a very familiar formula to WWE. Like, they've been booking those kinds of programs for many decades, so it ought to be good.

Cena carrying Khali to his best matches should have put to rest the whole "Cena can't wrestle" thing back in 2007

[fw91]

Even if he was passable, his whole reign reeked of “we just didn’t want to give it back to Batista right away,”

[Jaws the Shark]

Looking back I think he was booked pretty terribly throughout his time in WWE, not just his title run. Cornette may be persona non grata now, but I remember him making a very valid point in his YouShoot about Vader in the WWF: "Even Frankenstein kicked a few villagers asses first to get over." He debuts in April 2006 and went straight into a feud with the Undertaker, who he wallops at Judgement Day in a token gesture to get him over as a monster, but three months later he's lost the feud that's supposed to have established him as this unstoppable force.

And this becomes a common theme, he enters feuds with people and either dominates early but ends up losing the payoff, or loses all of the matches. He lost every title match he had with Cena, then entered into this feud with Batista after winning the title, which he ends up losing too. So you've got this supposedly unstoppable, dominant monster who isn't unstoppable or dominant at all, because everyone he encountered stopped him.