Vince McMahon Approved Surprising Gimmick Match

For decades Vince McMahon was the man making decisions behind the scenes in WWE, so he had the final say in regards to what gimmick matches made it to TV. The Punjabi Prison match is one of the most infamous gimmick matches in WWE history, but originally a different type of match was proposed.

Former WWE writer Court Bauer recently discussed the origins of the Punjabi Prison match on AdFreeShows.com while noting that originally he pitched the idea of doing an Exploding Deathmatch. Vince McMahon apparently approved the idea, but one Bauer saw photos of the structure that was being built he quickly figured out that WWE was going in a different direction.

“I had wanted to do a Deathmatch, Exploding Deathmatch in WWE, they were trying different things at this time, this was a time when they said ‘let’s try to relaunch ECW, let’s try different stuff.’ I showed Vince an Onita Exploding Deathmatch and he said ‘yeah, let’s do it.’ From there, they said ‘get with Kevin Dunn and his team, let’s get to work on it.’ I wasn’t the lead writer, I was just one of the writers in the room. … Vince liked an idea, and now it’s on someone else’s plate, we’ll circle back and that’s the lead writer’s job to communicate with [Kevin Dunn]. … About 12, 14 days out we finally see the first photos of this thing being built and it’s like ‘oh, that’s not an Exploding Deathmatch.’ It was supposed to be Undertaker in one of these things and it turns out to be what you’d see out of “Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom” or something.”

Ultimately WWE used the Punjabi Prison gimmick three different times for The Great Khali vs. Big Show at Great American Bash in 2006, Batista vs. The Great Khali at No Mercy in 2007, and for Jinder Mahal vs. Randy Orton at Battleground in 2017. Obviously WWE decided to do something different, but it will always be interesting to think about what WWE’s version of an Exploding Deathmatch might look like.

H/T Wrestling Inc.