The Great Khali: An obituary

And so, fingers crossed, it is now time to bury Khali.

He reached the dizzy heights of Smackdown and peaked as World Champ before being pinned after Batista's glorified transition move. But where did the ugly freak who can't wrestle come from? Well, now is the time to look back at his undeserved career.

In 1996, Giant Singh made his debut in All Pro Wrestling. By summer 2001, Khali's killing of Brian Ong in the ring had sent his star into the ascent. New Japan were interested and decided that a tag team of two 7'+ guys would put on good matches. The unevitable happened, and a falling out between the World's largest tag team created the kind of feud that all promoters dream of - CLASH OF THE FREAKS. Unfortunately, this opinion differs to that of wrestling fans. They prefer CLASH OF THE PEOPLE WHO CAN HOLD A DECENT MATCH. Here's that match...



0:35 - Octopus stretch?!
1:15 - PLANCHA! To his feet.
3:14 - What's happening? Is he giving him a hug?
3:25 - Look out for that clothesline Khali! It's so big it might even hit you before it hits you!
3:50 - is that an Edge impression? Either way, Khali's better at making spears look good now...
4:00 - HOLY CRAP! HE'S CLIMBED ALL THE WAY UP TO THE SECOND ROPE!

Anyway, let's not dwell on the golden years of Japanese wrestling. Khali became a househould name in the US. His debut was interfering in a match between The Undertaker and Mark Henry - two people who it would seem have had the World's longest feud thanks to both of them receiving intermittent injuries. Khali then went on a rampage in squash matches against much weaker opponents to show the world that he can destroy the jobbers.

His feud with the Undertaker escalated when Khali challenged him to the unheard of PUNJABI PRISON MATCH. At first, I thought that the match's stipulation would involve non-consential sodomy, however I turned out to be disappointed. Mere hours before the big PPV match, Khali was diagnosed with elevated liver enzymes. What a shame that Smackdown's latest star couldn't wrestle on live PPV. Luckily, the storyline writers decided that the logical replacement to continue the storyline would be The Big Show.

A Last Man Standing match was the scheduled re-match, and was due to take place at the next PPV - Summerslam.

For an unexplained reason, this match, which was expected to be broadcast LIVE on PPV was moved to the pre-recorded Smackdown show the week before. It was probably to edit out the awesome that Khali was definitely going to unleash during the match - much more awesome than your average wrestling fan can handle.

For a few months after that, Khali was deemed extreme and spend his time burying the ECW originals - wrestlers who were respected before Khali buried them. Such is the awesome of Khali.

After this, the Punjabi Punisher (as his 3 fans loved to call him) went to RAW - The A show! Unfortunately, the big man bit off more than he could chew by doing this by entering a feud with John Cena. A feud he'd come out of worse for. It seemed that Raw's own king of Awesome - Cena - was too many levels of awesome above Khali. Having tapped out in controversial circumstances to the STFU - Khali, the monster, had been pinned by Cena. WOW! HOW COOL IS THE MARINE?!

He was later drafted to Smackdown, where the injured Edge vacated his title and a 20 man Battle Royal was held to find a new champion. Khali kicked ass much like Ric Flair in Royal Rumble 92, only the fans cheered louder for Flair, and came out as the new champ. A feud between himself and Batista developed, and the big title match was held at Summerslam. Khali's power went out of control and he actually got disqualified for too many awesomes in a match, or using a steel chair, or something like that. Either way, KHALI RETAINED! His title defence was one that the fans at the arena will never forget. Maybe they wish they could, but that's because they're racist and hate seeing non-Americans retain.

Eventually, at Unforgiven, in a triple threat match between Khali, Batista and Rey Mysterio, Khali was pinned. But it was totally unfair as Mysterio had been powerbombed onto Khali and that should've had Batista DQ'd straight away. Unfortunately, that was the end of Khali. We can only wait and see what Smackdown holds for him in the near future.