15 Exact Moments Failed WWE Ruthless Aggression Gimmicks Actually Got Over
1. The Great Khali | May 20, 2007
If getting over was going to be a struggle for Batista, under the “WWE should give Paul London a run with the World title” principle popular at the time, the Great Khali had no chance in hell. On sight.
For the half of the audience that really didn’t like the John Cena body guy throwback era, Khali, basically another Giant Gonzalez, was the absolute last wrestler they wanted to see. They did not want an immobile spectacle performer. They had that when they were kids. That was the crux of so many issues during an era in which WWE chased a young audience as the existing audience stubbornly refused to move - after all, WWE had changed in parallel with its teenage fans during the Attitude Era. Why not now? Why can’t Akio get the belt?!
Khali could not move, but Vince McMahon did not care. Just look at the guy. He was massive! And he was actually much better than Gonzalez, as he displayed in a shockingly good match against John Cena at Judgment Day 2007. Khali at one point cut Cena off with a staggeringly high back kick.
Khali was probably over before this wild over-delivery of a programme with Cena, to be fair: Judgment Day drew the third-highest B-level PPV buy number of the year (242,000), and the largest since Vengeance 11 months prior in June 2006. While the stipped-up One Night Stand rematch drew a disappointing 186,000, Khali drew a B-level year-best at No Mercy (271,000): the show largely built around his Punjabi Prison match against Batista.
Maybe Khali was over all along, but nobody wanted to admit it.