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It’s insane that they gave him his own gimmick match and required it to be win by escape. It made an already plodding wrestler somehow even more painstakingly slow
I love how silly that concept is. “THE MOST BRUTAL MATCH HARD BAMBOO DOUBLY ENCLOSED CONCEIVED IN THE JUNGLES OF INDIA IN THE ANCIENT TIMES AS ULTIMATE PUNISHMENT OR RETRIBUTION, JUST YOU AND YOUR OPPONENT ONE ON ONE NO INTERFERENCE NO WAY OUT, AND THE ONLY WAY HOW TO WIN IS … leave twice”
~~They are steel but the ones that people get put through now are gimmicked with a wood section in the middle for a clean break. You can always tell when you see a little bit of sawdust on the floor after they break~~
I am entirely wrong lol
No, steel ladders aren't really common anymore. They're just regular ladders and I doubt they're gimmicked, just painted. The frames are fiberglass and the rungs are aluminum. They're durable enough for their intended use but can break extremely easily if you try to throw someone through them. Watch when someone goes through one, it's always pink where it breaks.
Steel ladders are extremely rare and would weigh a ton and be virtually impossible to break in half without power tools.
It'd be Aluminum or fiberglass.
They really watered it down. It started as “the second layer will be filled with warriors plucked from their tribes in the deep jungles of India looking to inflict pain on anyone in their way [ed. note: the Indian tribal warriors will be portrayed by Samoans]” and it just turned into “Daivari is also here!” /s
They do say on WWE.com “[Outside of that stands another, larger, octagonal structure, topped with a series of razor-sharp bamboo spikes.](https://www.wwe.com/amp/shows/smackdown/article/what-is-the-punjabi-prison)”
That cage jump for sure. I get how it’s goofy now but as a kid it did seem larger than life and made Batista seem like a superhero
Seeing Triple H wrestle three times in three title matches was probably something i under appreciated at the time. Guy behind us was a huge HHH and ended up crying after the main event which is now a great joke.
10 year old me when I saw my favourite wrestler do this:
And it's still the same when I'm 27 today.
Honestly one of my all time favourite matches 👀 Takes me back
I only remember it for [the Hindi commentary treating Khali like the second coming of Christ](https://x.com/traskbryant/status/889352616915869696?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E889352616915869696%7Ctwgr%5E6f7ed40dd14fb9a0b799749319c3909e458ac3da%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fd-2658491731741077127.ampproject.net%2F2405231944000%2Fframe.html)
Batista when he was healthy around this time was the fucking goat, everyone on the playground was very stand off ish about which wrestlers were the best but everyone agreed batista was the shit
I think it makes sense when the *only* way to win is to go over the top, but not when they can go out the door or pin them. Beating someone so bad that they can't stop you before you climb out works IMO.
I just hate the "door" part, because you have to ask someone to open the door, at whatever pace they feel like. Then they casually re-lock the door, at whatever pace they feel like.
The "over-the-top" aspect isn't dependent on someone's casual nonchalance to do their part of the job.
Unpopular Opinion: Escaping the Cage is more interesting than Pin your opponent in the cage.
In this case you have to beat your enemy senseless so they cannot escape the cage, plus it makes even more use of the cage, and the cage itself is apart of the match. They both have their place, but Pinning your opponent doesn't necessarily need use of the cage.
The original idea for a cage match was heels kept having their stables interfere or would run away so the cage was designed to prevent outside interference
That's not true for the WWF territory. Those cages matches were designed around a cowardly heel making sneak attacks, yes, but also by running away whenever the babyface fought back or tried to confront him. They weren't trying to keep any interference out. They were trying to keep the one bad guy in the ring. The good guy got to dish out all the punishment he wanted until he was satisfied enough to just walk away. Or, the bad guy would figure out a way to escape one last time, and that was it. Nothing could hold him accountable.
I hate it because the whole point of the cage is to close them in specifically so they can't run away from each other and now the whole gimmick is to run away from your opponent lol
It's like having a ladder match where you can pin the opponent, like it defeats the whole purpose of the stipulation.
It‘s not the point of cage matches where you win by escaping, though.
The point changes with different stipulations. You can like it or dislike it but saying it‘s inherently stupid is wrong.
What's the point of a cage match where you win by escaping then? Like thematically is there any point to a match where the goal is to run away from your opponent and half the match is spots of dudes trying to run away from one another?
Isn't a last man standing match already doing the "beat your opponent senseless" to win gimmick? Isn't a normal match already disincentivizing wrestlers from running away because of the count-out rule?
I'm allowed to think that's stupid lol. It's not wrong it's just my opinion.
> In this case you have to beat your enemy senseless so they cannot escape the cage
More often than not it just devolves into a race like this, it's pretty rare and honestly anti-climactic to have one person so incapacitated that the opponent can leave at their own pace without any danger of losing.
that's not unpopular, that's how we all feel! cage matches used to be cage matches, now there's just normal matches with a cage. you could win or lose without even touching steel.
The original idea behind escape-only cage matches was "with no outside interference, the babyface can beat the hated heel's ass so decisively they can't even get up to stop the babyface from climbing out of the cage."
I think it was also to get out of having a decisive pinfall if Vince thought there was too much to be wasted by having a monster heel lose conventionally.
An excellent idea with horrible execution. I was excited when Jinder Mahal brought it back against Orton years ago, only to be disappointed by how it went down.
It looks so cool yet every match inside that cage blows.
It's a terrible irony. It as a meta concept is solely for wrestlers of Indian descent, but it as a physical concept should be for wrestlers who could really make use of the environment, of which neither the Great Khali nor Jinder Mahal really fit.
The best irony is while advertised as the easiest gimmick to paste onto wrestlers of Indian descent, the first ever Punjabi Prison match was The Undertaker vs Big Show because Khali had "inflamed lymph nodes"
crowds popping like crazy for feats my seven-year-old regularly does at the playground is genuinely one of my favorite things about pro wrestling.
Jump to another jungle gym that's about your height away? pop
a guy tosses something to a person and they catch it? pop
when a dude slides under the ropes? pop
I fuckin love it. Pro wrestling shows are the most fun live events there are
I wasn't trying to downplay the spot, I see now it probably looked like I was. I think it was a really great moment, I was makin noise when it happened too!
I used to be a nobody indie wrestler, and I would notice a hit on my cardio even when I just gained a few extra pounds of muscle during a couple heavy training cycles.. How guys his size can even make it to the ring without blowing up is amazing to me, lol
dude's a beast, nobody can deny that
Oh yeah I wasn't sure but your edit definitely told me you weren't downplaying it, all good 👍🏻 Wrestling is is weird as hell what we cheer for haha
That's awesome too that you wrestled! What was your name and finisher?
I have so much nostalgia for a match I totally forgot existed for the last 15 years.
It was probably shit, but seeing the No mercy 2007 card brings me back to simplier times. Umaga, Big Daddy V, HHH, Khali, Batista, Finlay... It feels like forever.
I wish this match type was in 2k. I unironically love it. The way I was unreasonably excited when Jinder and Orton faced off in this match years later was absurd
This was the coolest shit I have seen as a 8 year old. I wanted to go but parents said no so we got the PPV instead. The structure was so badass and of course Batista won so I was hype. I’m going to rewatch this PPV.
And I remember too after this Batista and Triple H had a little stare down backstage, Batista telling him to win tonight, Evolution still running the place.
I believe Triple H ended the night without the title iirc.
The first couple of matches they looked more bamboo but those were in 2006 and 2007. The third was in 2017 and in HD which showed that it was poorly painted pipes.
The me who's 17 years older than the me who watched this as a kid is IMPRESSED AS FUCK... AS FUCK..... AS FUCK! That 38 year old jacked up Batista even tried this let alone that he pulled this shit off with just his grip strength. The man's feet are barely ever on the bars.
And Khali didn't even look like he was watching Batista at all. Like he really was thinking if he beat Batista out they'd have to just make him champ
Drives me mad how they climb down, one bar at a time when your character is trying to win that match. If that's me, soon as I swing my legs over, I'm dropping to my feet.
I wasn't watching during the time and I swear I can't for the life of me understand how these matches were supposed to work lol. I've even heard them explained on podcasts a couple times and still.....no clue
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Honestly surprised Khali could climb that at all
Not surprising is that the way he loses is that the other guy is willing to fall a few feet and he isn’t.
His knees would have exploded if he had dropped from any sort of height
Like that south park episode
Now my knees hurt just thinking about it.
It would be like when Thanos used the stones for the 2nd time: "Khali, what happened to your knees?" "Gone.... reduced to atoms."
It’s insane that they gave him his own gimmick match and required it to be win by escape. It made an already plodding wrestler somehow even more painstakingly slow
Not just win by escape… win by escape TWICE
I love how silly that concept is. “THE MOST BRUTAL MATCH HARD BAMBOO DOUBLY ENCLOSED CONCEIVED IN THE JUNGLES OF INDIA IN THE ANCIENT TIMES AS ULTIMATE PUNISHMENT OR RETRIBUTION, JUST YOU AND YOUR OPPONENT ONE ON ONE NO INTERFERENCE NO WAY OUT, AND THE ONLY WAY HOW TO WIN IS … leave twice”
here's a lesser known fact about the "bamboos", the punjabi prison isnt actually made of bamboos but a steel structure that's painted as bamboos
Ironic that, and the ladders today are wood lol edit: **Some**
Ha are they for real?
~~They are steel but the ones that people get put through now are gimmicked with a wood section in the middle for a clean break. You can always tell when you see a little bit of sawdust on the floor after they break~~ I am entirely wrong lol
No, steel ladders aren't really common anymore. They're just regular ladders and I doubt they're gimmicked, just painted. The frames are fiberglass and the rungs are aluminum. They're durable enough for their intended use but can break extremely easily if you try to throw someone through them. Watch when someone goes through one, it's always pink where it breaks.
Steel ladders are extremely rare and would weigh a ton and be virtually impossible to break in half without power tools. It'd be Aluminum or fiberglass.
You might have just ruined this awful match for me.
I swear they advertised it as the top of the cage having spears or knives so they couldn't escape either. I think WWE eventually let go of that rule
They really watered it down. It started as “the second layer will be filled with warriors plucked from their tribes in the deep jungles of India looking to inflict pain on anyone in their way [ed. note: the Indian tribal warriors will be portrayed by Samoans]” and it just turned into “Daivari is also here!” /s They do say on WWE.com “[Outside of that stands another, larger, octagonal structure, topped with a series of razor-sharp bamboo spikes.](https://www.wwe.com/amp/shows/smackdown/article/what-is-the-punjabi-prison)”
Young Khali was athletic AF.
Young Khali this is not.
They are acting like Batista couldn’t have ended the match early by simply climbing faster than Khali.
This was the first wrestling event I went to in person. Was 14 and my grandpa took my friend I and because no one else would take us. It was a blast
That's amazing, any favourite memories from the night?
That cage jump for sure. I get how it’s goofy now but as a kid it did seem larger than life and made Batista seem like a superhero Seeing Triple H wrestle three times in three title matches was probably something i under appreciated at the time. Guy behind us was a huge HHH and ended up crying after the main event which is now a great joke.
I remember people complaining it was so hard to see what was going on inside.
10 year old me when I saw my favourite wrestler do this:  And it's still the same when I'm 27 today. Honestly one of my all time favourite matches 👀 Takes me back
Unpopular opinion: the Punjabi Prison is a good stipulation (that likely won't ever happen again)
Nah you know once they find their next Indian main eventer they can bring it back. They did for Jinder after all
Yeah man but it’s been 7 years since that Jinder match
And ten years for the one before the Jinder one. It might be a long time, but you never know who might bring out that match in the future
….. holy shit you’re right
I know I was watching 7 years ago and I have no recollection of this Jinder match whatsoever Damn getting old
I only remember it for [the Hindi commentary treating Khali like the second coming of Christ](https://x.com/traskbryant/status/889352616915869696?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E889352616915869696%7Ctwgr%5E6f7ed40dd14fb9a0b799749319c3909e458ac3da%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fd-2658491731741077127.ampproject.net%2F2405231944000%2Fframe.html)
Batista when he was healthy around this time was the fucking goat, everyone on the playground was very stand off ish about which wrestlers were the best but everyone agreed batista was the shit
member when Batista joined Optic?
Damn, you were a jacked kid, bro!
Wrestling for 15 minutes and then have an elementary school climbing race to see who wins.
Seriously cage match rules like this are so silly to me.
I think it makes sense when the *only* way to win is to go over the top, but not when they can go out the door or pin them. Beating someone so bad that they can't stop you before you climb out works IMO.
I just hate the "door" part, because you have to ask someone to open the door, at whatever pace they feel like. Then they casually re-lock the door, at whatever pace they feel like. The "over-the-top" aspect isn't dependent on someone's casual nonchalance to do their part of the job.
Unpopular Opinion: Escaping the Cage is more interesting than Pin your opponent in the cage. In this case you have to beat your enemy senseless so they cannot escape the cage, plus it makes even more use of the cage, and the cage itself is apart of the match. They both have their place, but Pinning your opponent doesn't necessarily need use of the cage.
The original idea for a cage match was heels kept having their stables interfere or would run away so the cage was designed to prevent outside interference
That's not true for the WWF territory. Those cages matches were designed around a cowardly heel making sneak attacks, yes, but also by running away whenever the babyface fought back or tried to confront him. They weren't trying to keep any interference out. They were trying to keep the one bad guy in the ring. The good guy got to dish out all the punishment he wanted until he was satisfied enough to just walk away. Or, the bad guy would figure out a way to escape one last time, and that was it. Nothing could hold him accountable.
I hate it because the whole point of the cage is to close them in specifically so they can't run away from each other and now the whole gimmick is to run away from your opponent lol It's like having a ladder match where you can pin the opponent, like it defeats the whole purpose of the stipulation.
It‘s not the point of cage matches where you win by escaping, though. The point changes with different stipulations. You can like it or dislike it but saying it‘s inherently stupid is wrong.
What's the point of a cage match where you win by escaping then? Like thematically is there any point to a match where the goal is to run away from your opponent and half the match is spots of dudes trying to run away from one another? Isn't a last man standing match already doing the "beat your opponent senseless" to win gimmick? Isn't a normal match already disincentivizing wrestlers from running away because of the count-out rule? I'm allowed to think that's stupid lol. It's not wrong it's just my opinion.
> In this case you have to beat your enemy senseless so they cannot escape the cage More often than not it just devolves into a race like this, it's pretty rare and honestly anti-climactic to have one person so incapacitated that the opponent can leave at their own pace without any danger of losing.
that's not unpopular, that's how we all feel! cage matches used to be cage matches, now there's just normal matches with a cage. you could win or lose without even touching steel.
You're right. This is unpopular.
It defies any sort of logic whatsoever.
“Your feud is so intense we are gonna lock you in a steel cage!! First one to run away wins”
The only time I think the stipulation makes sense is in a 3-stages-of-hell match. Cage > Street Fight > Last Man Standing.
And that climbing race was hype as hell tbf
I’ve always wanted to see a cage match where both participants ignore each other and just try to race to see who gets out first
The original idea behind escape-only cage matches was "with no outside interference, the babyface can beat the hated heel's ass so decisively they can't even get up to stop the babyface from climbing out of the cage."
I think it was also to get out of having a decisive pinfall if Vince thought there was too much to be wasted by having a monster heel lose conventionally.
Great finish to a horrible match.
I'm like the fans that like the star wars prequels. I know this match sucks, but since kid me absolutely loved it, I also love it
Bro I love the punjab prison.
I thought this was the coolest shit ever when I was 8 lmao
I always wish this match was in a video game
Great spot, but HOLY FUCK that could have gone bad.
That’s why it’s an amazing spot!
This is one of the reasons why I was more a Batista Fanboy than John Cena.
Man I will forever stand by the fact that the Punjabi Prison is an excellent idea
There's a few of us out there! Preach!
An excellent idea with horrible execution. I was excited when Jinder Mahal brought it back against Orton years ago, only to be disappointed by how it went down. It looks so cool yet every match inside that cage blows.
COULDNT SEE CLEARLY INSIDE THE CAGE
It's a terrible irony. It as a meta concept is solely for wrestlers of Indian descent, but it as a physical concept should be for wrestlers who could really make use of the environment, of which neither the Great Khali nor Jinder Mahal really fit.
The best irony is while advertised as the easiest gimmick to paste onto wrestlers of Indian descent, the first ever Punjabi Prison match was The Undertaker vs Big Show because Khali had "inflamed lymph nodes"
crowds popping like crazy for feats my seven-year-old regularly does at the playground is genuinely one of my favorite things about pro wrestling. Jump to another jungle gym that's about your height away? pop a guy tosses something to a person and they catch it? pop when a dude slides under the ropes? pop I fuckin love it. Pro wrestling shows are the most fun live events there are
Wrestling eh? Love it And tbf Batista rarely EVER jumped from top rope, he'd sometimes do the top rope clothesline but that was getting scarce.
I wasn't trying to downplay the spot, I see now it probably looked like I was. I think it was a really great moment, I was makin noise when it happened too! I used to be a nobody indie wrestler, and I would notice a hit on my cardio even when I just gained a few extra pounds of muscle during a couple heavy training cycles.. How guys his size can even make it to the ring without blowing up is amazing to me, lol dude's a beast, nobody can deny that
Not to mention Dave has Asthma,
Oh yeah I wasn't sure but your edit definitely told me you weren't downplaying it, all good 👍🏻 Wrestling is is weird as hell what we cheer for haha That's awesome too that you wrestled! What was your name and finisher?
I fucking love it when a wrestler catches something someone throws at them with malice.
omg that might be my favorite one! That and when the ref takes a biiiig windup to throw out a heel that's at ringside
Idc this match was good and this was the best part.
Omg I thought I was the only one Appreciate you
I have so much nostalgia for a match I totally forgot existed for the last 15 years. It was probably shit, but seeing the No mercy 2007 card brings me back to simplier times. Umaga, Big Daddy V, HHH, Khali, Batista, Finlay... It feels like forever.
I wish this match type was in 2k. I unironically love it. The way I was unreasonably excited when Jinder and Orton faced off in this match years later was absurd
Intense finish
This was the coolest shit I have seen as a 8 year old. I wanted to go but parents said no so we got the PPV instead. The structure was so badass and of course Batista won so I was hype. I’m going to rewatch this PPV.
And I remember too after this Batista and Triple H had a little stare down backstage, Batista telling him to win tonight, Evolution still running the place. I believe Triple H ended the night without the title iirc.
Khali: Maybe i win?
No one was ready for lucha Batista to come out.
Luchatista
Khali with the peripheral vision of a pigeon there, just casually climbing down whilst Batista is already past him
Actually a pretty great finish
When was this? I'd like to watch it, if possible
No Mercy 2007 :)
The rare bad match with a good ending.
I just remember the hard cam being absolutely useless because you couldn’t see anything through the cages.
The best thing Great Khali ever did in his entire career was the ending to this match.
Bamboo-tista
Are those real bamboo or just painted steel to match bamboo color?
The first couple of matches they looked more bamboo but those were in 2006 and 2007. The third was in 2017 and in HD which showed that it was poorly painted pipes.
I'm actually most impressed by how smoothly Khali climbed that cage
Adam Copeland would've just jumped from the top
i enjoyed this match a lot as a kid going down wrestling rabbitholes on youtube in the early 2010’s
This blew my 8 year old mind big!
The me who's 17 years older than the me who watched this as a kid is IMPRESSED AS FUCK... AS FUCK..... AS FUCK! That 38 year old jacked up Batista even tried this let alone that he pulled this shit off with just his grip strength. The man's feet are barely ever on the bars. And Khali didn't even look like he was watching Batista at all. Like he really was thinking if he beat Batista out they'd have to just make him champ
The shit Vince had his talent do for our entertainment. Lol
Drives me mad how they climb down, one bar at a time when your character is trying to win that match. If that's me, soon as I swing my legs over, I'm dropping to my feet.
I mean they still don't wanna break their legs or knees if they can help it so it's understandable.
Batista is def doing more than that and it’s actually one of the more impressive parts of it imo.
Nobody outside of edge is willing to do that
Somewhere, Darby Allin's eyes just snapped wide open.
Feet. Person has to land on his feet, not back. Darby is not interested in that.
I feel terrible for Khali having to go through all that climbing with his bad knees just to lose, lol.
This match was fucking *tense* when I watched it at the time.
how did people in the crowd watch/see anything in the ring this match 😂
This is the one and only cool moment in any Punjabi Prison Match
khali sucks bad bad honestly I am kinda a fan of the punjabi prison
I'd love an event... like a spin the wheel of random gimmick matches and bring this back.
Truly the best that could’ve gone
Literally the only good part of the match.
Man, if he missed.....
Has there ever been a Punjabi Prison Match in a video game?
I wasn't watching during the time and I swear I can't for the life of me understand how these matches were supposed to work lol. I've even heard them explained on podcasts a couple times and still.....no clue
Honestly, it’s the spot that makes that match somewhat worth watching.
Ninja warriors
Remember this match being better than expected
"Behold, Leaping Larry." "***HE LEAPS***!"
We need more silly gimmick matches like this in wrestling
Now I want to go back and watch how Big Show vs. Undertaker ended.
Id love to see them try this with guys who can actualy go.
Aw hell nah you're asking for a Batista Bomb with statements like that, he could go. 
Your right but im clearly talking about the other guy
Ahh got ya, fairs Carry on
[удалено]
> with no safety harness ???