I just finished watching WWE’s Battleground, the main event of which was a “Punjabi Prison” match between Jinder Mahal (the WWE champion) and Randy Orton. Mahal won due to interference from both of the Singh brothers as well as a returning WWE all-star The Great Khali. The work in the match was not clear face/heel, but it really never is in a match like that. The only key moments that seemed out of face character for Orton were:
- Trying to kill Jinder with a steel chair (yeah, faces do that all the time, but it didn’t fit with his heroic “comeback against all odds” story)
- His not doing the classic face hesitation with the kendo stick when Jinder begged him not to hit him
- He was Randy Orton
Someone posted a fascinating post to Reddit about the Hindi announce team. I don’t speak their language, so I am taking this poster at his word, but his reasoning backs up what I’ve been saying about Orton for a long time. Here’s a link to the full post, but I’ll offer the key quote:
“First thing to make clear, there was literally no question who was the face and who was the heel. Jinder was the all conquering hero and Orton was the evil American…When Jinder came to the ring, both the commentators ran down his accomplishments and ended with “1.3 Billion people are supporting him, and that will lead him to victory today”…When Orton came down to the ring, they barely acknowledged his existence instead focusing on “Jinder agreed to face Randy in this match despite knowing he would have no backup. What a display of bravery”…“India stands with Jinder” was the entire message on commentary.”
This is of particular interest to me for two competing but compelling reasons:
- I don’t think the WWE understands how to book Orton at all (or that he’s only good in very distinct situations)
- There’s a fascinating commentary on race here
I’ll start with the first, because it’s a quicker case to make. it boils down to a very simple concept: Randy Orton seems like a jerk. I don’t mean to say that he’s a bad person. I’m sure he’s delightful as a human being. But he has never been able to play a character in WWE that was anything other than a rude, or even psychotic, definitely arrogant and utterly selfish piece-of-crap.
His last major feud before he started this series with Jinder (where he lost the title and has lost two rematches) was with Bray Wyatt. It was a long angle, and it was really good up until the end. Randy couldn’t beat Wyatt, so he joined him. You can read one of my past posts to see how the Wyatt character works, but he’s basically a charismatic cult leader who claims supernatural powers. He and Randy won the tag championships together (then lost them). Then Randy won the #1 contendership to Wyatt’s WWE championship. He first claimed he wouldn’t fight his friend/leader. Then he revealed it was all a dirty trick, and he DESECRATED the grave of Wyatt’s beloved Sister Abigail and burned down Wyatt’s house. So the big face in the build up to a WWE championship match at Wrestlemania was a grave destroying, bone-stealing, arsonist Judas figure. That’s just bad writing.
And now, even though he’s lost several times to Jinder, Orton just keeps hurting people and demanding more matches.
That’s not how a face works. That’s not how any of this works.
The problem, I think, is that WWE thinks they can book Orton like they booked Steve Austin. The big issue rises from the fact that Orton isn’t Austin. His character lacks the charisma, the depth, and the in-ring presence. Orton is 4 spots and some punches (power slam, DDT with feet on the ropes, snap suplex, Diamond Cut… RKO). He’s a lousy promo. He can’t be Stone Cold, no matter how much the WWE wants him to be. And believe me, if they’re shoving Roman Reigns down the crowd’s throat, this is the second decade of Randy Orton as a WWE suppository.
Now to point two: the issue of race. Jinder Mahal has made no hesitation to mention that he represents India (funny, since he was born in Canada, but I still buy into it). More importantly, he has appeared more than once and claimed that the crowd hates him because of the color of his skin. And when he says this, people chant “USA USA USA” which isn’t very reassuring.
And herein lies the narrative problem that is so perfectly encapsulated in the Hindi commentary to the WWE title match: to the rest of the world, the United States is the heel. We’re bullies. We threaten with our nukes. We decimated Japan in WWII as the only super power to ever actually use a WMD. He intervene in strange ways in places we have no business intervening in. And it’s possible that our current President was assisted by the Russians. We’re the Hans Gruber in this story. We’re Ivan Drago.
So Jinder Mahal is, at least in some ways, the face. He even affirmed this on Talking Smack after the event, saying not that he didn’t cheat, not that he didn’t need help, but rather that he was smart enough to pick a match where he knew he could take advantage of the situation. Another person used to do this: legendary heel-face-heel-face-heel Ric Flair, the dirtiest player in the game.
So the question stands… do WWE fans take Jinder Mahal as the heel just because he’s from India?
1 thought on “Day 182: WWE and Race”