The Great Khali’s Scrapped WWE Name Pitch Revealed

WWE Hall of Famer The Great Khali is officially retired from full-time wrestling. However, he’s open to coming out of retirement and returning to WWE for a one-off appearance.

The Punjabi Nightmare recently appeared on Chris Van Vliet’s “Insight” podcast. During the chat, Khali revealed that Vince McMahon came up with his in-ring name. However, McMahon’s pitch also involved calling “The Great Gandhi.” This idea was scrapped by WWE before the name “The Great Khali” was made official. He said,

“Vince McMahon. Vince said Great Gandhi or Great Khali. I said I can choose Gandhi, but Gandhi is a peaceful guy.”

Khali Says WWE Tried To Kill His Character

During the same podcast, Khali reflected on WWE changing his monstrous character to a comedy one. The Hall of Famer said,

“When I was serious, then I came into comedy. I think when I said I didn’t want to work more with WWE, after WWE found out, they were thinking, ‘Khali wants to leave, he wants to leave, he wants to leave.’ So then they made me comedy.”

“Comedy wrestler, because they wanted to kill my character. That’s true. When I started wrestling, all of India watched wrestling. Every kid, woman, man, youngster, old person — a billion people watched wrestling. So they were thinking, ‘He wants to leave.’ So they made me comedy. Yeah, I just wanted to leave. Yeah, I wanted to do my own things.”

“After three years, I wanted to say I wanted to leave. So they tried to pay me more. I said, ‘Okay then.’ But they were thinking, ‘Oh, he wants to leave.’ So then they tried to kill my character. They wanted to kill my character. Indian people love me. You can try to kill my character, maybe you try to trash me, but your own fans, your own family, your own circle, they love you. They understood.”