Entry #308
Jinder Mahal (c) vs. Randy Orton
Punjabi Prison Match for the WWE Championship
WWE Battleground - July 23, 2017
Of course, the final release this go around was Jinder Mahal, who's got a much bigger repertoire of bad matches behind him. So I was left with a lot more choice, and a much juicier choice too. I eventually went with this, which is shockingly the first appearance of the Punjabi Prison in this thread! That's right, we're taking a look at WWE's worst stipulation! This apparently came about when Court Bauer showed an exploding ring deathmatch to Vince, left him with that thought, and came back to find it had morphed into this. There have been three Punjabi Prison matches, all of them bad. And it's also part of Jinder Mahal's inexplicable WWE Title run. Let's go!
Jinder's out first, wearing his grumpy heel face, and no Singh Brothers, giving us false hope that we're not going to have them interfering this time. The outer structure is lowered accompanied by Generic Indian Subcontinent BGM #4. Top tip for bookers: If Greg Hamilton takes about a minute to explain the rules of the stipulation, that is a bad stipulation. It's surreal to hear good old Tommy Facefuck on WWE commentary, with how my mind now associates him with TNA. I'm expecting him to call Eddie Edwards interfering or something.
Orton starts laying in with forearms and kicks. Jinder downs Orton and immediately calls for door number 1 to be opened, but he stops to allow Orton to stop him. Both keep trying to get through the door but are held back. This is one of the main reasons why Punjabi Prison matches are so bad: they make the worst part of cage matches the most important part of the match. The door is locked, and the two wrestlers stop wrestling for a bit to allow it to happen. Eventually they're back to generic brawly stuff. Jinder pulls out a double knee armbreaker (that's a pretty cool move), and starts working that arm with the aid of stomps and the bamboo. I'm aware of the quiet of the crowd. It's probably because they have no idea what's going on.
What's going on is a hammerlock variation by Jinder. Jinder continues to work the arm. I have no idea what the fans are chanting, but it doesn't sound positive. Jinder tries the second door, but Orton fairly unconvincingly stops him with the worked arm, which is just bad practice. Orton hits a fallaway slam. Double down, Orton drags himself to the door, but Jinder pulls him away. Neither makes it to the second door, only two left. Some fucking dweebs try to start a "let's go Jinder" chant. Jinder gets whipped, but instead tries to climb the bamboo. Orton follows behind, Jinder kicks him off, but Orton drags him off so Jinder bounces off the top rope, testicles first. You can't fake that shit! Jinder counters the Hangman's DDT and rams Orton into the cage. Fans still can't see shit. Orton suplexes Jinder into the bamboo wall a couple of times.
Orton calls for door number 3, but crawls too slowly so Jinder can stop him. Am I hearing CM Punk chants?? Orton downs Jinder with a headlock and is almost there, but Jinder snaps his arm on the rope. Door number 3 is gone. A lot of staring down on knees. Fucking stop. The geeks trying to start "let's go Jinder" chants are actually catching on. Orton gets a quick powerslap and manages to hit the Hangman's DDT after all. Orton calls for the final door, but goes for the RKO instead, letting Jinder get a high knee. Khallas gets countered into an RKO, and I get it, cool spot, but it's a long walk for not much. And after all that talk about no Singhs interference, the Singhs come out from UNDER THE RING and drag Jinder out of the door.
Orton is now forced to climb the cage, while Jinder is on the outer cage. He monkey-bars his way across, and now they're fighting on the outer cage. Orton manages to face-bust Jinder on to the floor. Singhs drag Orton down and start beating on him, because every single Jinder Mahal match is the same. Singhs toss Orton into the way of a superkick. Jinder climbs, but Orton suplexes a Singh before dragging him down again. Another suplex for one Singh before tossing another into the cage. Jinder grabs a kendo stick and cracks it against Orton. Khallas attempt but Orton rams Jinder into the cage. Now Orton's got the kendo stick and is smashing every Canadian-of-Indian-heritage in sight.
Time for Orton to climb the cage... but a Singh slips through one of the holes by Being a Cruiserweight, and chokes Orton against the cage bar. Orton manages to punch (apparently) Samir Singh off the cage so he can take an announce table bump. The far-too-long time this took allows Jinder to recover and climb up. They do a bit of fighting on the cage, Jinder dragging Orton down, you know the sort of thing. Jinder misses a kick and gets his leg caught on the cage, allowing Orton to hit a Hangman's DDT on the floor. Orton gets a steel chair, while they keep playing that Samir table bump because nothing interesting has happened since. Chair shots for Sunil and Jinder. Slowly.
Back to climbing the cage for Orton. Sunil grabs the leg but gets kicked off. Orton has no strength in his arms to do it... but Jinder's music hits? Out comes the GREAT MOTHERFUCKING KHALI. Orton's trying to climb the last bit, until Khali shakes the bamboo and brings him down. Khali CLIMBS THE CAGE and gets Orton with a one-handed choke, allowing Jinder to climb over and (eventually) win. You'd think this was the start of an Indian super-stable, but no, Khali didn't appear again to help his former storyline brother-in-law. Or indeed, appear at all until his final WWE match as a random appearance in the Greatest Royal Rumble.
Want to know how long this match lasted? 27 minutes and 40 seconds. And almost none of it containing anything of note. Absolutely wretchedly boring. Who decided this would be okay? Vince McMahon did. No idea how he wasn't institutionalised for suggesting this.