WWE's Punjabi Prison Was Supposed To Explode
There have been some pretty wacky matches over the course of wrestling history. We've seen wrestlers battle on top of scaffolding, dogs patrolling a ring inside a cage, and people being buried alive on a number of different occasions. One of the most infamous match types in wrestling might well be WWE's Punjabi Prison match, and there have somehow been three of them over the years.
An Exploding Punjabi Prison Match
For those of you unfamiliar with the match type, a Punjabi Prison is similar to a cage match except the structure surrounding the ring is made of bamboo. That also means there is almost no give to the bars of the cage whatsoever which is why wrestlers aren't too keen on the concept. As it turns out, the original idea for the match might have had the few who have had to step inside of it even more reluctant to do so.
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MLW's Court Bauer, a former WWE writer, revealed to GameSpot's Wrestle Buddies that the original idea was for the cage to explode. “I showed 'Vince McMahon] a tape of an Onita deathmatch with the exploding ring. I said I wanted to do that in WWE, and he signed off on it,” Bauer revealed shortly after explaining it was part of the larger Punjabi Prison match pitch.
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Where Are The Explosions?
“We start seeing the mockups for what the exploding cage was going to look like,” Bauer went on to say. However, with just ten days to go until the PPV, the mockups didn't include any explosions. It also sounds like this was the first time Bauer had been made aware the idea he had pitched would be made of bamboo. The cage obviously didn't include any explosions and it seems the original pitch also didn't include any bamboo.
The Punjabi Prison match debuted in 2006, there was another the following year, and then it disappeared for a full decade. The only reason it returned was because Jinder Mahal was WWE Champion. Between the risks wrestlers take by competing inside of it and the inability for fans in attendance to see what's going on inside, it seems likely that it will be left in WWE's storage facility for good. If only it had exploded the first time it was used.
