Quote:
Originally Posted by Noid
I'm not expert on India, but I could have told you that from day dot. It's a logical paradox:
Indian fans are marks: Then they'd be preconditioned to knowing that Jinder sucks.
Indian fans are smarks: Then they know Jinder Mahal sucks.
[...]
All or none of that could be true. I just don't buy this idea that Vince McMahon, Triple H, Stephanie McMahon, that new Indian executive they hired and everyone in the fucking company sincerely believed that if they put the SmackDown Title on Jinder Mahal, India would open up to them. They did this exact same thing with Khali in 2007 and it didn't work then. It would be insanity to expect different results doing the same thing with someone who is less of a star. If it happened, which it was never going to, then it would have been nice for everybody. But I don't think they were seriously sitting around a table discussing that it would change the direction of the business forever and add 100 million subscribers to the Network.
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That whole thing (I didn't recopy it all) makes sense in a real-life logical standpoint, but you have to remember we're talking about WWE. This is the same company that I gave the benefit of the doubt to when trying to force-feed Batista's return as some sort of cross-promotional power play for Guardians of the Galaxy, a bump for mainstream pop culture appeal, and a nostalgia pop all rolled into one... and really, it was just to try to position him almost in a role similar to where Brock Lesnar is now, just with way more availability dates and a seemingly cynical "fuck all those small guys like Daniel Bryan, THIS is what you're supposed to see!" move. It really almost just seemed like it was done out of spite, and they thought Guardians was going to fucking flop and the perfect storm that could have been gained was purely coincidental.
Like you said, they tried it with Khali. In 2007. This is 2017. It is well beyond that "seven year window" with angles and such, and they likely believe this is also how business works as well. Try the same shit again a decade later with a different brown guy to artificially and clumsily create a marketplace god; a figurehead to exploit in some region of the world while trying to churn out carbon copies of the very unique career trajectory of The Rock (jump to megastardom and beyond, only all while under contract, so that the Hollywood dollars come rolling in while they pimp him out instead of doing it on their own as a next step in life). Hell, I'm even reminded of the story about Sid: Vince wanted to "give him [Hogan's] boots", and Sid refused because he insisted he worked better as a monster heel. Truthfully, he did, and though it would be interesting to speculate how very different the business would have been if Sid just rolled with that, the point is, Vince just tried to duplicate what he had previously instead of building elsewhere. Try the same shit with the same result in perpituity. He only eventually did something else out of neccessity.
They tried the same shit with Alberto Del Rio for Mexico. They are purportedly looking for the same thing for some dude from South America. Meanwhile, the thing they are looking for can come and slap them in the face in the form of a very ethnic international superstar, however, if he isn't a 6'10" mountain of mostly cosmetic muscle or a pale imitation of Andre, fuck them.