Scrapped WWE Plans For Roman Reigns To Have Punjabi Prison Match Revealed

Roman Reigns almost found himself competing in a Punjabi Prison Match at Extreme Rules 2018. 

Speaking on Insight with Chris Van Vliet, Jinder Mahal revealed there were initially plans in place for his feud with Roman Reigns to continue beyond Money in the Bank and culminate in a Punjabi Prison Match at the next pay-per-view. 

"So first off, the Punjabi Prison Match sucks. It's terrible. It's so hard. The inside cage is the blue old-school cage. You can hit it as hard as possible and it won't even make a noise. It was terrible. And then just the crowd reaction they couldn't really see the people in the arena, there's two cages so when we're on the inside, there's two cages they couldn't really see. And it was just painful. Kendo sticks, chair shots, everything...Actually, I was supposed to possibly have one with Roman Reigns at Extreme Rules. I think we just had a regular straight-up match and it was in Chicago, too. There was talk of the Punjabi Prison Match coming back. Me and Roman in the Punjabi Prison," Mahal said.

The match ultimately never took place, though, as Roman Reigns turned the plan down, according to Mahal. Reigns and Mahal did have one pay-per-view match, with Reigns defeating Mahal at Money in the Bank. Reigns transitioned to a programme with Bobby Lashley following his match with Mahal before he defeated Brock Lesnar at SummerSlam to become Universal Champion. 

Jinder Mahal remained with WWE until his release in April. His 90-day non-compete clause has just expired and the former WWE Champion is set to wrestle on the independents as Raj Dhesi. 

WWE have only held three Punjabi Prison matches, with the first taking place between The Undertaker and Big Show at Great American Bash 2006. Batista and Great Khali then faced off inside the structure at No Mercy 2007 for the World Heavyweight Championship before the stipulation was revived at Battleground 2017 for Jinder Mahal's WWE Title defence against Randy Orton.