Dear Vince, Don’t Hinder Jinder

“All hail the modern day Maharaja, Jinder Mahal!”

-JBL on Smackdown Live 

Tonight is Battleground in Philadelphia, locked inside a Punjabi Prison, WWE Champion Jinder Mahal defends his title against Randy Orton. We all know the Jinder Mahal story by now, right? The perennial jobber turned WWE Champ. How bad was he? He’s won 18% of his WWE matches bad. That’s a record of 87 wins and 383 losses. In a normal sport, that record doesn’t get you anywhere near a championship. But this isn’t a normal sport. In April, Mahal had no business being in the #1 contender’s match for the WWE title.  This is when the business side influences the booking (more on that later).  In a shocking move, despite having bigger names in the match, they went with Mahal. By the way, just throwing six guys in a #1 contender’s match is such lazy booking.

After becoming the #1 contender, it was time they establish this jobber as a serious threat to Randy Orton’s title run.  It started with the win over Sami Zayn on May 2nd; his first victory on TV since 2016. One week later Jinder follows that up by pinning Randy Orton in a six man tag team match. He caps it off with a win over AJ Styles six days before beating Orton to become the 50th WWE Champion in Chicago at Backlash.

Here’s that ‘more’ from earlier… Now, let’s all remember that the WWE, before anything else, is a business. They have plans to grow internationally and India is on their radar. Mahal is the chosen one to make that happen; that’s a lot of pressure on his shoulders. WWE feels there is a lot of money being left on the table in that country. In the attempt to appeal to the audience in India, creative is having Mahal cut these heel promos in America and then cut a baby face promo in his native tongue, Punjabi. If only the WWE went to India like they went to Canada back in 1997, then the “baby face in home country” and “heel in America” gimmick could really work to perfection. Back then, Bret Hart and the Hart Foundation were heels in America cutting very anti-American promos but when they were in Canada, the positive reactions they got were deafening. I don’t know if that can ever be replicated. Hell, there’s a chance Mahal may not even make it to a show in India as WWE champion, which would defeat the purpose of this run, no? It’s a new day, no pun intended, where business decisions will continue to influence booking.

After winning the WWE title, Vince McMahon and the creative team leaked all of the jet fuel from his rocket pack. He has beaten Randy Orton on multiple PPV shows behind very lazy booking. Back-to-back shows featured the same finish to the matches. That only reflects poorly on the guy who is winning these matches. On Smackdown Live, Mahal has beaten Tye Dillinger and Mojo Rawley. Those are two names that won’t do anything for your career, your push or getting over. Jinder Mahal is the WWE champion and he needs to start beating guys on TV who are on that level. No disrespect to Dillinger or Mojo, but they are nowhere near that level. Some complaints about Mahal have been that he has cut the same promo every week on TV. Has he? Sure, but whose fault is that? It isn’t Mahal’s fault. That, again, falls on the shoulders of the people in charge. When the WWE does their booking like this it truly makes me wonder what they’re thinking. Are they intentionally trying to sabotage his run? Are they trying to make sure he gets NO heat at all? They DO know that if they put Mahal in the best position to succeed they too will succeed, right?

Despite it all, Jinder Mahal has performed at a high level since becoming WWE champion. The WWE has given him lemons and he found a way to turn them into Long Island Ice Tea. Which takes me to this Sunday in Philadelphia.  This is a must win night for the Mahal title run. The match will take place in a Punjabi prison, which means they can’t book the same lazy finish for the third straight PPV match between Mahal and Orton, thankfully. This is the payoff to their feud. There is no need for a fourth match, there hasn’t been enough done to warrant one. The wrong move would be going back to Orton as champ, it also doesn’t feel like that’s where this is headed. Once they made this match a Punjabi Prison match, which was Mahal’s stipulation, I have felt the WWE is going to stick with Mahal as they should. There needs to be a top level program with Mahal defending the title against a top level baby face where the match seems BIG. This match doesn’t seem big and that’s more on Randy Orton than it is Mahal. Orton winning the WWE title AGAIN seems as disappointing as the “surprise” of Jason Jordan being Kurt Angle’s son. We should know what’s next for the title heading to SummerSlam once Battleground is over. Is the guy John Cena? Shinsuke Nakamura? AJ Styles? I don’t know who it is but I know who it isn’t… Randy Orton.

Jinder Mahal has not been given much with this title run and for them to pull the belt off him now would be a major letdown. A win, a clean win, is what needs to be the ending result this weekend. A win where Randy Orton cannot get another title shot. A win that truly solidifies Jinder Mahal as the guy on Smackdown. As of this writing, Friday night, odds makers have Jinder Mahal as a -300 favorite to retain his title on Sunday. So that’s a great sign.

Vince, don’t hinder Jinder.