Singh’s debut comes roughly seven months after his official AEW signing in September 2021, shortly after which he began his training at the Atlanta-based “Nightmare Factory,” a wrestling school run by Cody Rhodes and QT Marshall. On the heels of the recently announced WarnerMedia/Discovery merger and a subsequent deal of AEW programming being featured on Discovery’s Eurosport India channel, AEW owner Tony Khan looks to use Singh’s debut as a stepping stone in establishing a potential AEW branch in India.
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Singh would make his impact on the AEW scene in a rather unusual way. As Joe celebrated his hard-fought victory over Suzuki (the TV Title being the one ROH championship Joe had not won in his career), Joe’s former protégé Lethal and his lackey Dutt mockingly congratulated the new champion from the stage and wanted to give him the “present” they had promised from last week’s Dynamite episode. The lights went out, only to come back on and reveal a 7-foot, 2-inch, sharp-dressed giant, Singh, in the ring with Joe. The new ROH TV Champion tried to fight off the giant but Lethal and Dutt joined in, and the 3-on-1 assault quickly became too much for Joe, as Lethal would stand tall with his cohorts over his former mentor to close out the show.
Singh’s impactful AEW debut, however has been divisive, at best, among fans and critics. If the “Who Are You?” chants from the live audience weren’t enough, online pundits took the booking behind the debut to task as well, citing that the “lights-out debut,” a long-time staple in many wrestling promotions, is usually reserved for a talent that is easily recognized by wrestling fans once the lights come on and will be seen as a truly shocking and surreal appearance. Singh making his debut in such a manner, in the eyes of many, took a lot of air out of what had been an excellent episode of Dynamite up to that point.
One can certainly understand the business side of this situation, with Khan wanting to put focus on a charismatic giant like Singh in order to build the AEW brand in India, but it has to be said that while Singh did break ground as the first Indian-born NBA player in 2015, he also never made it out of the ‘Summer League’ when playing for the Dallas Mavericks, and he even got caught doping in late 2020, leading to a two-year ban. That’s not exactly the most auspicious background for someone you want to build the foundation for a company, or even a branch of a company, around.
There are those like QT Marshall, however, who feel the fans and critics are too quick to jump on Singh and his AEW debut and should give the man a chance to breathe now that he is a part of the main roster, and Khan even conceded the point of putting together a more properly-done debut for Singh in a recent Busted Open Radio interview. It brings to mind that AEW has only been around in the mainstream for a few years and mistakes are bound to be made. It’s how Khan and company will bounce back from said mistakes that will shape the future of AEW.
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Source: All Elite Wrestling
