The wrestling world was turned upside down last Sunday night when Jinder Mahal defeated 13-time WWE Champion, Randy Orton, to win his first WWE Championship at Backlash. Considering that Mahal was jobbing out regularly just mere months ago, it’s shocking to see him hoist one of the WWE’s main titles. So, how did he get here?
Mahal debuted for the WWE in 2011. He bounced around the mid-card and lower mid-card, but never really gained traction. His longest rivalry was a seemingly ongoing one against The Great Khali, but it was largely inconsequential. Eventually, he joined the newly re-branded NXT, but that ended up being a ploy to ultimately put over Seth Rollins as the first NXT Champion. For some reason, he always seemed to creep right up to a big time program or a mid-card title run, and then just peter out. But, he’s always had the look of a superstar.
After a year or so of stalling programs and such, Mahal ended up as a member of 3MB alongside Heath Slater and Drew McIntyre. It was a comedy gimmick. While many of us fondly remember the humor these three superstars provided, we all knew that that wasn’t how you got to the top in the WWE. A lot of times, when singles stars end up in comedy bits, it’s a sign that the WWE has given up on them. That ended up being the case with Mahal and McIntyre of 3MB. Mahal was released in June of 2014.
Years passed and it seemed like the end of the road for Mahal in the WWE. He went on to wrestle all over the world. But, when the WWE announced a reincarnation of the brand split, Mahal was brought back to provide depth on the Raw roster. He was one of a few brought back for this purpose – see Curt Hawkins and the Spirit Squad.
It still seemed like a rather insignificant return. But, it was a foot in the door. By year’s end, Mahal was featured in a program with Rusev. He had a killer pay-per-view match with Cesaro at Fastlane. In hindsight, maybe the WWE spent early 2017 kicking the tires on a Mahal push?
He moved to the Smackdown roster as a apart of the Superstar Shakeup following Wrestlemania. That’s when the real shocker happened – Mahal won the #1 contender’s spot and the right to face Randy Orton for the WWE Championship at Backlash.
News broke that the WWE was looking to expand its presence in India, wanting to capitalize on the popularity of wrestling and the sheer number of people living there. Mahal was the guy to carry the brand there. Still, everyone presumed it would be a nice little push, but there was no way he would actually get the strap….right? RIGHT!?
Alas, here we are.
Because we’re writers and we have a natural obsession with ranking things, we immediately started reaching into the history books to find something to compare this to. The problem is – I don’t think there really is anything we can compare this to.
The first name that came to mind was JBL. In 2004, he transformed from the beer-drinking, cigar-smoking, bar room brawler, Bradshaw, to the immigrant-chasing, millionaire, John “Bradshaw” Layfield, and parlayed it into an improbable WWE Championship run. It felt like an overnight switch, much like Mahal’s.
But, there are a couple of key differences between the two. First of all, in 2004, the WWE needed superstars. They had Eddie Guerrero, Undertaker, and Booker T, but that was it. John Cena wasn’t ready to take the brand and run with it. Kurt Angle was injured. And, well – Rene Dupree certainly wasn’t going to become the face of Smackdown.
That’s not the case in 2017 – aside from Orton, the Smackdown main event picture features superstars such as A.J. Styles, Kevin Owens, Chris Jericho, Baron Corbin, Sami Zayn, Dolph Ziggler, Luke Harper, and Shinsuke Nakamura. Lots of guys capable of carrying the brand.
Second, at no point in his career was JBL fired because WWE had no use for him. And, he certainly wasn’t booked into a hokey comedy bit. As best as I can remember, he was never a jobber. Mahal was underutilized from the get-go, was released, and then came back to put over young talent. After that, he took the next step and became WWE Champion. He’s had a much larger mountain to climb than JBL had.
I’m sure the Internet will point someone out, but off the top of my head, I can’t think of a more improbable run to the WWE Championship.
Regardless, Wrestling Twitter likes to complain about the WWE failing to build new stars. Well, let this be a reminder that they truly have the power to do that overnight.
Stoney Keeley is the Editor in Chief of The SoBros Network. A strong advocate of GSD (get shit done) and #BeBetter, he’s down to talk Tennessee Titans and Alabama Crimson Tide football over a beer any day. Check him out covering the WWE for WrestlingNews.co. Follow on Twitter @StoneyKeeley, @WrestlingNewsCo
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