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In 2017, Jinder Mahal shocked the world when he beat Randy Orton for the WWE Championship at Backlash. The reason this was shocking was because just weeks earlier Jinder Mahal was a perennial jobber. Jinder Mahal had never been taken seriously by WWE, he was best known for being a member of 3MB, he had never even won a mid-card championship never mind the World Championship. It was one of the all-time bizarre booking moves in WWE history.
Why Did Jinder Mahal Become WWE Champion?
In 2017, WWE decided to make a concerted effort to monetize India. India was responsible for huge amounts of WWE’s social media traffic and WWE was said to be a huge deal over there. 10 years earlier, WWE became national news in India when The Great Khali become the World Heavyweight Champion. Khali was so big that news channels would have regular updates on him and he became a huge star in India because of it.
In 2017, WWE wanted to see if lightning could strike twice.
Jinder Mahal was the only man of Indian descent on their roster (it is worth noting that he is born and raised in Canada), but he had been doing very little of note since returning to the WWE in 2016. He was a lower card talent, he lost most of his matches and he had no credibility as a main eventer. Jinder did have one thing working for him though, ever since joining WWE a year earlier, Mahal had gotten himself in incredible shape. Mahal looked incredible, he definitely had the body and look of a champion, but he was booked so poorly nobody cared.
Since WrestleMania 33, Mahal was in a lower card feud with Mojo Rawley and Rob Gronkowski. That feud never got a finish however as out of nowhere, with no real build or reason, Mahal was added into a Fatal 5 Way Number 1 Contender's Match for the WWE Championship. Even more surprisingly, Jinder won. It came completely out of left field, it made no sense. Jinder had no history of success, he was losing a feud to Mojo Rawley and Rob Gronkowski, why was he suddenly WWE Championship material?
With little build, and even less sense, Jinder Mahal won the WWE Championship at Backlash 2017. It was an insane decision, never before had a lower card superstar won the top prize out of nowhere like this. It was done with no creativity and no build-up, it was done purely in an attempt to cash in on a supposedly lucrative Indian market.
Jinder Mahal Was An Utterly Boring WWE Champion
Jinder Mahal admittedly looked awesome holding the WWE Championship, he was in the shape of his life, he got cool new music, they gave him a great-looking entrance with Jinder walking down a red carpet appearing before him, it was a great visual.
But that’s where it ended. Jinder Mahal isn’t a bad wrestler by any means, he was perfectly acceptable but his in-ring work was unable to match the main event level of other former WWE Champions, throughout his run as WWE Champion, all of his matches were generally very forgettable.
Jinder’s promos constantly focused on how big a star he was in India and how he was a great Champion for India and that he was representing the Indian people. He did that every single week.
Every. Single. Week.
Jinder Mahal was WWE Champion for 7 months. His character never evolved, his matches were the definition of midcard, his promos were generic and his storylines were just boring. He feuded with Randy Orton in a forgettable feud. He feuded with Shinsuke Nakamura and adopted a bizarrely racist character, making fun of how Nakamura spoke, but nothing ever got over with the crowd.
Jinder Mahal Did Not Equal Success For WWE In India
After all that, did WWE make any money in India? Nope.
After 7 months of Jinder holding up the main event scene on Smackdown, WWE gave up on the whole experiment. In those 7 months of heavy marketing to the Indian fan base, WWE’s market in India didn’t grow one bit. WWE made no more money from the whole experiment.
Even if it had worked, even if WWE had made millions from the Indian fan base, fans still would have hated this whole thing. WWE could have made it work had they actually tried, if they had Mahal steadily win more matches and work his way up the card. But no, they hot-shotted the whole thing and after everything was said and done, Jinder Mahal went right back down to the lower mid card.