Tuesday night’s WWE SmackDown Live began with WWE Champion Jinder Mahal and the Singh Brothers making their way down to the ring for a celebration. They were joined by several people of Indian descent, dressed in traditional Indian clothing.
Mahal informed the fans that today is Indian Independence Day. He had an older woman in the ring to sing the Indian national anthem. As the woman sang, she was boo’ed out of the building by the fans in Providence, Rhode Island.
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India’s Independence Day means a special celebration is in store for @WWE Champion @JinderMahal! #SDLive @SinghBrosWWE pic.twitter.com/uu8ZvipV2F
— WWE (@WWE) August 16, 2017
After Mahal continued on, speaking about how he would defeat the American hero John Cena tonight, he was interrupted by Shinsuke Nakamura.
The crowd went crazy for the “King of Strong Style” as he got on the microphone himself. He spoke about how today is a day of remembrance in Japan for those who have died in war. He then likened this Sunday to a holiday as well — SummerSlam — where he will be defeating Jinder for the WWE title.
It was a decent opening segment, though a bit awkward for many reasons. With all of the news going on in the United States over the weekend regarding hate groups, it was a little uncomfortable watching “Indian” wrestlers (Jinder is actually Canadian) being boo’ed solely because they are portrayed as evil foreigners.
Yes, the evil foreign wrestler gimmick has been used in wrestling forever, but current events made this one a bit more stomach turning.
