A New WWE Champion Means Everybody Wins

As the great Gorilla Monsoon would have said, history was made Tuesday night in Manchester, England. The 170-day WWE Championship reign of Jinder Mahal came to an end at the hands of AJ Styles on an episode of SmackDown Live. It’ll be Styles moving on to Survivor Series to take on Universal Champion Brock Lesnar. Who would have thought back in 2002, when Lesnar was the top new sensation in WWE & Styles was the top new sensation in NWATNA, that it would take fifteen years for them to finally meet in a wrestling ring? Indeed, we live in interesting times.

There are a number of ways to go with this story. I couldn’t choose one, so here’s a potpourri of the things I’m thinking about now that our long national nightmare is over.

When Spoilers Are Good

WWE has gotten into the habit of reporting on big events that happen on shows they’re not airing live. This makes sense from the standpoint of getting hits, but raises the ire of people that don’t like it when their stories are spoiled before they get to watch them. I imagine my mother would be irate if somebody told her what was going to happen on General Hospital next week. I myself got irked when my friend insisted on watching part of a Blacklist episode recently when I was at his house & spoiled a plot development from last season for me. But it was my own fault for putting myself in the situation.

Back in the 1990s, being live mattered. There was competition that was eager to spoil whatever you were planning. That wasn’t the only factor though. It was a universe where the only way you could watch something after it aired on TV was setting your VCR. VCRs weren’t the most convenient things in the world, so most of us just changed channels between competing wrestling shows. If you didn’t see it “live” or via Memorex, you didn’t see it.

In 2017, most of us don’t watch television “live”. We have DVR. We have YouTube. We have Netflix, Hulu & many other streaming services. Hell, we have WWE Network. We can watch anything we want whenever we want.

If you didn’t get to see the title change on Tuesday night, you could go to WWE’s YouTube site the same night and see the finish. There are accounts that will show you the full match until WWE makes them take it down. If you have the patience, you can wait a month and watch the full episode on WWE Network.

The downside is if you’re really basing your entire life around not having the results spoiled and planning on being around friends with the same interests. Or if you’re planning on being on the Internet. Or even if you plan on being on your smartphone checking social media. Unless you shut yourself off from society, it’s become impossible to miss the big news.

Sure, you can avoid the result in the Becky Lynch/James Ellsworth match without trying too hard. But when there’s a major title change it’s going to be everywhere. WWE would be silly not to hype it up too.

I fully planned on ignoring SmackDown Live last night in favor of hockey. The second the Nashville Predators finished off the Columbus Blue Jackets, I flipped over just in time for the entrances. I doubt I was the only person with this mindset.

If you’ve got something special planned that people will want to see, scream it from the mountain tops. It’s good for business, even if it’ll annoy the SPOILER FREE crowd. You’ll get those people back anyway.

The Experiment’s Conclusion…For Now

I include the “For Now” against my wishes as a wrestling fan. As much as I would prefer for this whole thing to go away, I don’t see Jinder Mahal getting banished to his old position on the card like the Honky Tonk Man was after losing the Intercontinental Championship. As long as Jinder remains the top option of Indian decent on WWE’s roster, and as long as he doesn’t make the wrong people angry, he’s going to be prominently featured.

Defenders of the Jinder Mahal Experiment have insisted that it’s all about the Modern-Day Maharaja getting to India as WWE Champion. Once that happens, the entire sub-continent will open their wallets & throw all of their rupees at the feet of Vince McMahon & World Wrestling Entertainment. There’s nothing India wants more than their golden boy, the pride of Punjab, to come home with the world’s most prestigious wrestling championship wrapped around his waist.

Which is a fine idea. The downside is that the rest of the world has to sit through Jinder Mahal championship matches. It’s not the best way for one to spend their time, unless they’ve drunk enough Kool-Aid or Jim Beam or whatever it takes to convince them that Mahal is some sort of otherworldly talent that is revolutionizing the business. He isn’t.

People worrying about what this will do for the live events in India in December probably don’t need to bother. After all, another argument from the Jinder defenders for the past few months has been that the money’s in the chase. Now that their hero has lost the championship, Indians will turn out in droves to see the Maharaja reclaim his lost glory.

From an in-ring perspective, Jinder Mahal finally losing the WWE Championship can’t be seen as anything but a good thing. I will say that Jinder did have a good in-ring performance on Tuesday night. Probably the best of his career, which isn’t surprising considering who he was in the ring with. But at the same time, I’ll credit Jinder for doing his job like a professional. People notice things like that.

The Jinder Hinderer

You might think that AJ Styles is running out of things to accomplish. The knock against him when he finally showed up in WWE was that it took so long for him to get there. He had a lot of business to take care of first. He did everything that could be done in TNA. He went to New Japan Pro Wrestling & dominated alongside the Bullet Club. Now he’s gone to WWE & won their major championship twice. AJ Styles has quietly had one of the best wrestling careers of the 21st century.

Now he gets to wrestle Brock Lesnar. Assuming Jinder doesn’t sneak in there before Survivor Series, of course. Hopefully he has a little patience and gets out of the way for now.

Most of us were dreading the idea of Brock Lesnar vs. Jinder Mahal. The idea of John Cena sticking his nose in as a guest referee for “reasons” didn’t really wet anybody’s appetite either. If WWE wants Survivor Series’ annual clash between Raw & SmackDown superstars to be a thing, they have to present champion vs. champion matches that people want to see. Brock Lesnar vs. Jinder Mahal isn’t something people were lining up to see.

Brock Lesnar vs. AJ Styles is a much different situation. I can already hear the naysayers crapping all over it. Brock doesn’t work over 10 minutes. He’ll squash AJ like a grape. It’ll be a huge disappointment. Maybe they’ll be right. But wouldn’t we rather find out for ourselves in real life than play it out on WWE 2K18?

It’s a meeting of two men that have more in common than you would think at first glance.

-Both men are forty years old.
-Both men have four kids.
-Both men went to college on wrestling scholarships.
-Both men became top stars on a national wrestling stage in 2002.
-Both men have held the WWE Championship & the IWGP Heavyweight Championship.

It’s a clash of two of the most accomplished wrestlers of this generation. Brock is the clear favorite, because he always is. AJ is the clear underdog, which is a role that he thrives in.

Whether AJ’s second reign as WWE Champion is a fly-by-night deal for the sole purpose of having this match is irrelevant. It’s just like the TLC show where Styles came in to replace Bray Wyatt against Finn Balor. People whining and complaining about how everything should have weeks upon weeks of build don’t realize one thing: You have to have some matches when you have the opportunity. Styles vs. Balor fit that bill, and so does Styles vs. Lesnar.

Whether this was all planned out months in advance or just a few days, everybody’s coming out ahead. Survivor Series gets a great main event. Jinder Mahal gets some time to recharge his batteries & will probably get another shot on top. AJ Styles gets another title reign to add to his impressive collection. Brock Lesnar gets an opponent that will make him look like a million bucks.

The fans win too. English fans got to see the WWE Championship change hands for the first time in their country. The rest of us got a surprising result on Tuesday. We all get to see Lesnar vs. Styles at Survivor Series.

There’s really no negatives here to speak of, unless Brock chucks AJ into the fifth row, hurts multiple fans & causes a lawsuit.