TNA's Often Forgotten About Indian Promotion Ring Ka King, Explained
Sophia Edwards In 2011, TNA announced a big project in India. A new spin off promotion called Ring Ka King, featuring new Indian talent along with some big names from the TNA roster. TNA sent over the likes of Scott Steiner, Abyss, Magnus, Matt Morgan and Chavo Guerrero while also signing up some independent talent to fill out the cards like Sonjay Dutt, Doc Gallows and Chris Adonis.How did this come about? Well, there have been a few wrestling companies which have tried to monetize India, such as WWE and the Jinder Mahal experiment of 2017. TNA, to their credit, tried to do the same thing five years earlier.When asked about the start of Ring Ka King, Jimmy Rave — who was on the Ring Ka King roster — said that the Indian Prime Minister’s son had broken his neck while wrestling and so professional wrestling was taken off Indian TV for a number of years.RELATED: The Great Khali Roasts WWE For India ExpansionUntil Ring Ka King, that is!Jeff Jarrett was in charge of the product, working alongside Dutch Mantell, Dave Lagana and Jeremy Borash. Road Dogg and Sonjay Dutt held open try outs across India to find athletes that could fill the rest of the roster, while Savio Vega was responsible for training the very green Indian recruits at Ohio Valley Wrestling (OVW).
Ring Ka King Was The Most Watched Wrestling Show In The World
An entire first season was recorded, with 26 hours worth of television airing on the Colors TV network in India. Ring Ka King’s first episode was on January 28, 2012 on Colors TV and garnered an audience of 14 million, making it the most watched wrestling show in the world. To put that in perspective, the biggest wrestling show on TV right now is Friday Night SmackDown, which usually gets just two million viewers a week.
On paper, it sounds bizarre. And it definitely was bizarre. Nick Adlis — who was on the Ring Ka King roster — admitted “it was like a weird acid trip.” Ring Ka King took a random selection of TNA wrestlers, mixed them up with some green Indian talent, and brought it to a country where pro wrestling isn’t a big deal. And yet, it kinda worked.
Of the Indian talent on display, The Bollywood Boys were probably the ones who gained the most notoriety in America with them having runs in TNA, Global Force Wrestling, and eventually WWE as the Singh Brothers. Mahabali Shera was another name who would also get a long run with Impact Wrestling.
The shows themselves were… interesting.
The Show Was Actually Kind Of Fun
The sets actually looked pretty good — it was nice and bright and colourful, and was arguably better looking than the Impact Zone at the time.
The crowd really were the unsung heroes of this promotion, treating even the blandest of matches with the enthusiasm most American crowds rarely achieve. Nick Aldis says the crowd was paid to be there, but they were never directed or produced. Aldis speculated they were all just happy to be paid for having such a fun time.
Scott Steiner received a new lease on life in this experiment, as it was clearly his last hooray as a main event performer, and he was amazing. In Ring Ka King, it looked like he was back to his prime as a scary, pumped up beast who would terrorize the audience. His promos were of course hilarious, routinely calling the Indian talent, “white trash.”
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Abyss was a proper monster once more; a silent, dominating presence, back to his old gimmick compared to whatever character he had evolved into by 2012. Chris Adonis (formerly Chris Masters) was a big part of the show also, bring back his infamous Adonis (Master) Lock Challenges.
There were some strange characters on the roster, Scott Steiner, Sir Brutus Magnus and Sonjay Dutt were a faction for reasons never explained. Doc Gallows amusingly played a version of American Badass Undertaker, a biker who rode to the ring on a motorbike.
It is a hell of a watch if you ever fancy going through the episodes. Most of the promos are in English, but commentary and promos from Indian talent are in Hindi. There are no subtitles either, so if you don’t speak Hindi, there is no way of figuring out what is going on. After the first season of Ring Ka King, TNA expressed doubts that a second would be produced, and a second season was never made, which is quite shocking consider the crazy high viewers the first show received.
