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Well, it has been a strange year in the world of pro wrestling.
You could look at 2017 as a strange year all around in the world, but, in the WWE universe, it has simply been outright bizarre. Nowhere has this been more transparent than in the booking of its top titles booking. The Universal Championship on Raw has been missing in action for almost the entire year. But the WWE Championship, on the other hand, was held by Jinder Mahal for the majority of 2017. If you called that fact before the year, you are lying.
You cannot deny that WWE has invested a lot of time and money in experimenting with the idea of Jinder Mahal as a possible top star. He held the WWE Championship for six months, he headlined multiple pay-per-views and was pushed as a major star to finally get the WWE into the major potential market of India. But has it worked? I would say by multiple measures it has been a huge failure. His time as a major factor in the main event scene has come and gone.
As we look back at Jinder’s unique 2017, I present my five reasons why Jinder’s Main Event Push Is Over:
#5 Too Many Other Compelling Options in 2018
I can say this about Jinder that he was the top heel of the Smackdown Brand in 2017. He feuded with the likes of Randy Orton, Shinsuke Nakamura and AJ Styles. While I doubt a lot of wrestling fans will place those feuds among the best in 2017, it did provide a lot of significant television time in 2017 for the blue brand. And that is a major problem for Jinder going forward.
Jinder cannot really make a good case to revisit those main event style feuds. It didn’t exactly set the world on fire last time in terms of match quality or television ratings. As WWE Champion AJ Styles looks for his next opponent, I think most of us would consider Sami Zayn, Kevin Owens and even Shinsuke Nakamura to be more compelling options going into 2018.
#4 The WWE Has Lost Faith In Him
It is quite clear that the WWE doesn’t see Jinder as a long-term option based on how he has been booked in the last two months. They pushed him for a nearly a month in promos for a Survivor Series Match with Brock Lesnar only to abruptly kill that momentum with less than two weeks to go. Not that I was disappointed to see AJ Styles versus Brock Lesnar instead.
It was even worse for Jinder Mahal in the important India market. You would think the WWE would push the guy who portrayed as a conquering hero of India. If the WWE wanted to continue Jinder’s run as a credible heel, you don’t have him lose clean to part-time wrestler Triple H in a non-televised live event in India. It shows how little they regarded Mahal by the end of 2017.
#3 He Simply Isn’t A Good Wrestler
In a year of some wrestling classic matches, (Cena-Styles, Dunne-Bate and Okada-Omega) you will be hard-pressed to be remembered by wrestling audience without something exciting or unique to truly stand out from the crowded marketplace. Jinder Mahal is clearly neither of those things.
It is hard to think of a memorable Jinder match. He simply doesn’t have an exciting offensive move set. He prefers lots of rest holds and working on a body part. In an age where every minute counts, watching Jinder put a face in peril into rest hold for minutes, isn’t going to scream exciting or dominant champion in today’s wrestling scene. If fans are constantly chanting “boring” during your matches, you don’t scream dominant champion.
#2 His Promos Are The Same Every Single Time
I feel somewhat sorry for Jinder Mahal. In 2017, he was hampered by a terrible and tired gimmick: the evil foreigner. Why the WWE, in a truly global economy, insists on having its non-American wrestler be evil is beyond me. This doesn’t help Jinder’s long-term potential but he doesn’t help the matter either with the predictable content of his promos.
Every promo of Jinder is the same. "You don’t show me the proper respect. You hate me because I am from India. It is now time to speak to my people in my native language."
Jinder’s delivery isn’t bad but it shows a lack of confidence to give the same tired promo time and again. He simply hasn’t shown the ability to provide something fresh.
#1 Not A Crowd Pleaser
It was certainly a unique social experiment to take a life-long WWE jobber and push him so fast to the top of the card. It isn’t like the WWE didn’t give him a proper chance with nearly seven months at the top of the Smackdown card to show his worth. When you are at the top of the card you better do one thing, you better draw the company lots of money. On this most important area, Jinder was a colossal failure.
You need to look no further than those depressing shots of empty seats at Smackdown television shows in recent months. This has occurred only recently during the Jinder Mahal’s long title reign. This trend continued with the television ratings.
Smackdown actually hit record low-numbers in early June. When you throw in the fact that they had to cancel one of the two live shows in India, that doesn’t bode well for Mahal really being a draw for the casual fans in the future. He had his chance to draw and it didn’t work.
