On TMZ’s Inside The Ring, David Otunga said that wrestlers will sometimes intentionally perform poorly in a match, and shared a story of when he was advised to do just that by Arn Anderson to protect himself from a move by The Great Khali.
The conversation began when the hosts asked Otunga about the rumor that Jey Uso intentionally dragged out his match with CM Punk at Saturday Night’s Main Event due to being unhappy with the booking. “Those guys do that, yeah, I agree with that for sure. I know guys do that,” Otunga said. “Did Jey do that? I don’t know. I’d have to see that. If he did, I’m not saying I condone that. If he did, I could understand it”.
The “Death Move”
Otunga then offered his own example. “I’ll give you an example. I had to do this one time, and I’ve never told this story. So this is pretty good,” he began. “So for a while I was driving the great Kali… my worst wrestling injury that I have, he gave it to me”.
“Khali had another finisher, and it was like this two-handed choke slam,” Otunga continued. “Now, I don’t know if you guys know this, but he killed somebody with that in OVW… I’m well, I was well aware of that. So during this loop, he’s already busted my eye open. And now he decides, hey, let’s do a different finish tonight. I want to know what he called it, the two-edge choke slab. And I was like, ain’t that the death move? No, Kylie, I think I’m good… I just don’t really want to do it”.
Arn Anderson’s Advice
Otunga said The Great Khali “tried to tell on me” to their agent, Arn Anderson, for being scared. “So Aaron comes to talk to me, and I said, I’m not scared. I said, Well, actually, I am, you know, I don’t know if I trust this. So Aaron said, I tell you what, kid, and he’s like, one time somebody asked me to do a move that I didn’t want to do. And he said, I did it so terribly. They never asked me to do it again… I said, Oh, all right,”.
Otunga followed the advice. “We went out there… We did the match. We went for that thing. I hardly jumped. He barely got me up. It looked awful. It looked awful. Yeah, he had to use the chop anyway. Did I say a bag of my purpose? You’re absolutely right”.
“So that I came back through the curtain, I never forget, and Art Anderson was right there, and he goes, I see you took my advice, kid, yep, we never did that again… He thought I just sucked. He thought I just took a bit. I don’t care. Yeah, I didn’t think that. Yeah, man, you could, they kind of suck. I don’t care. You’re alive. Yeah, and Aaron and I knew what was going on”.
Jim Cornette, who was the co-owner, head booker, and head trainer of OVW from 1999 to 2005, took to Twitter to refute this by tweeting: “Wrong wrestling school by about 2300 miles, dipshit. Nobody was ever killed, paralyzed, or allowed to dive off balconies in OVW, and the Great Khali, nor any other lesser Khali, ever attended OVW. @TMZ needs to fact-check their programming.”
Wrong wrestling school by about 2300 miles, dipshit. Nobody was ever killed, paralyzed, or allowed to dive off balconies in OVW, and the Great Khali nor any other lesser Khali ever attended OVW. @TMZ needs to factcheck their programming. https://t.co/f5ChECzXY2
— Jim Cornette (@TheJimCornette) November 11, 2025
If you use any portion of the quotes from this article please credit TMZ’s Inside The Ring with a h/t to WrestlingNews.co for the transcription. You can find the podcast on all major podcast platforms.
