On TMZ’s *Inside The Ropes*, David Otunga revealed that wrestlers will sometimes intentionally perform poorly in a match. He shared a story about when Arn Anderson advised him to do just that 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 dissatisfaction 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. “For a while, I was driving The Great Khali. 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. Well, I was well aware of that. So during this loop, he’d 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 slam. And I was like, ain’t that the death move? No, Khali, 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 Arn 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 Arn said, I tell you what, kid,” Otunga shared. “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.”
Following this advice, Otunga went out and performed the move poorly on purpose.
“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 I did it on purpose? You’re absolutely right,” Otunga admitted.
“I came back through the curtain, I never forget, and Arn Anderson was right there. 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 Arn and I knew what was going on.”
### Jim Cornette Responds
Jim Cornette, who was the co-owner, head booker, and head trainer of OVW from 1999 to 2005, took to Twitter to refute the story.
He tweeted: “Wrong wrestling school by about 2,300 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.”
https://wrestlingnews.co/wwe-news/david-otunga-details-death-move-refused-take-wwe/