The underdog comes out of the shadows, recently escaping from his jobber prison, rippling with muscles gained through countless hours of relentless training fueled by angst and rage (is the story we’re going with.)
The under-used, talented D list wrestler escapes the WWE’s “future endeavor” announcement to defeat 14-time World Champion Randy Orton for the title.
And the fans were all like “Meh…”
Watching Jinder give his all on the mic, I really think he can and will be a good heel. The problem is that we just plain didn’t have enough time to get to know him. One week he was Jobber Mahal from the Three Man Band, next week he was the number one contender for the World Title.
There are a couple of likely reasons why they’re doing this. My co worker thinks WWE wanted Orton to drop the belt again so they can quickly move him up to 16-time World Champ and challenge Cena (another 16-time World Champ).
Another possibility is that WWE is trying to expand in India. India, and the Middle East, has a lot of wrestling fans. They loved The Great Khali, who sadly never caught on much. So putting the World Title on Mahal seemed like a great way to sell the WWE Network in India.
Let’s see if it works. Either way, Indian fans do deserve to see a good push for one of their own. (I know Mahal was born and raised in Canada, but it’s still his culture.)
I can’t even find too much fault in giving Mahal the World Title, other than the timing.
This came soon after Bray Wyatt dropped the belt and suddenly went to RAW, so a lot of fans were already pretty testy to begin with.
Then Mahal came pretty much out of nowhere to become number one contender.
I haven’t seen the “hate” that some commentators accuse the nay sayers of. It’s more like, “Huh?” So I don’t think anyone really has anything against Mahal. In fact, I’m probably going to count myself as a Jinder fan before too long. (I like heels and I love it when the under used guy gets a push.)
But the WWE made it feel more like a publicity stunt when he got the belt. They wanted to expand in India as quickly and easily as possible, but they didn’t (re) introduce us to (the new) Jinder Mahal through a non-title feud.
But all and all, the Mahal push will likely be a success in the end if the WWE goes about it in a more organic way and doesn’t try to force it like they did with Roman Reigns.
So Congratulations, Jinder Mahal!
The Southern Nerd 