8 Wrestlers Who WWE Gave The 'Diesel Push' At Royal Rumble

6. The Great Khali (2007)

Great Khali Undertaker
WWE.com

You can’t blame newer fans for not understanding why The Great Khali makes this list, but if you were a WWE fan back in 2007, you not only get it, you also probably groan.

Khali was brought into WWE in 2006 and immediately feuded with The Undertaker, providing some stiff (in more ways than one) competition for the Deadman. After that feud, he moved on to ECW and then over to Raw, where he resided when the 2007 Royal Rumble occurred.

Entering at #28, Khali would spend less than four minutes in the match, but he would toss seven(!) men in that short span, including Chris Benoit, Rob Van Dam and CM Punk. Undertaker would finally eliminate the future Punjabi Playboy.

Six months later, Khali moved back over to SmackDown and won the World Heavyweight Championship. His run as a top villain would come to an end after that, and he later transitioned into more of a sideshow/comedy act, but for a brief period, Khali was a huge threat on the roster.

Contributor
Contributor

Scott is a former journalist and longtime wrestling fan who was smart enough to abandon WCW during the Monday Night Wars the same time as the Radicalz. He fondly remembers watching WrestleMania III, IV, V and VI and Saturday Night's Main Event, came back to wrestling during the Attitude Era, and has been a consumer of sports entertainment since then. He's written for WhatCulture for more than a decade, establishing the Ups and Downs articles for WWE Raw and WWE PPVs/PLEs and composing pieces on a variety of topics.