Welcome to another edition of WWE Heat Index, where one of the biggest stories in the week is examined under a microscope and picked apart for analytical purposes. This week, there has been no bigger story than Jinder Mahal defeating Randy Orton at Backlash on Sunday to win the WWE Championship.
Not only is this his first title stint in his WWE tenure, but it is the most important accomplishment in the company outside of a Hall of Fame induction.
Mahal is now part of an illustrious group of people who are forever etched in history as being able to do what every professional wrestler wants to accomplish in their careers, and he’s also part of an even rarer class of people who won the biggest prize as their first championship — something that applies to The Undertaker, Hulk Hogan and other legends.
For some reason, WWE felt the right step for the future of SmackDown and the company, in general, was to put the belt around his waist, shocking audiences and making everybody collectively ask a few questions aloud, namely: “Huh? What? Where do they go from here?”
First things first, we need to examine why this happened in the first place.
Rumours, speculation and conspiracy theories are all over the place with ideas ranging from Mahal simply being rewarded for improving his physique and dealing with being a jobber for so many years to accusations that this is entirely a marketing gimmick.
To be fair, everything in WWE is a marketing ploy. The entire company runs on the promise that even when a feud ends, you’re supposed to want to tune in next week to find out how they follow it up.
But when you look at how the WWE has made a concerted effort in trying to expand its global presence over the past two or three years with a heavy focus on Chinese, Japanese and Indian markets, it doesn’t come off as too crazy of an idea.
There is a live event tour scheduled for India in September and while that seems like a far distance from May, not only is it a possibility Mahal keeps the title until that point but even if he doesn’t, this title win has dramatically increased his stock and he will be a bigger draw regardless. Reports also suggest he is set to hold the title until September, which would mean he gets to defend the title in India later on in the year.
If WWE legitimately put the title on him just for the sake of trying to make a bigger splash in that region of the world, it’s a cheap move that unfortunately might just work.
So many people, no matter what part of the world they’re from, have a built-in fan appreciation of people who come from their area. Just look at how CM Punk still gets chants in Chicago after years of not being with the company.
This title win will do nothing but help WWE’s presence in India, so whether it’s worth it, in the long run. to make that decision just for business purposes is entirely dependent upon how much it boosts their sales and how WWE is able to prevent fans from thinking that it is a shallow title reign.
The way to get around that is to book Jinder Mahal as a legitimate, true champion, which is still well within the realm of possibility. The future is not certain and this could be looked at in a few years as a huge boost to the roster and the wrestling industry, a total flop, or something between the two extremes.
Let’s start off by examining the positive side of things which may come to pass.
One of the biggest complaints from wrestling fans is that things become predictable and there’s too much of the same thing being repeated over and over again. This flies directly in the face of that, as Mahal had a rushed build and went from being enhancement talent to the zenith of the SmackDown roster.
Even the people who thought there was a possibility that WWE might put the belt on him weren’t confident in their predictions that the trigger would actually be pulled. Many people out of the loop even took it as a joke, thinking there was no way Mahal actually did win the title until they saw the video evidence.
This earns WWE some brownie points with the fan base who likes to complain that the powers that be are never willing to give someone new a shot. If it were true that the creative team was only concerned with putting titles on John Cena, Roman Reigns and so forth, Randy Orton would have retained at Backlash.
This also gives credibility to the running phrase that SmackDown is “the land of opportunity” where someone struggling with their career can move to in order to get a push and start turning things around.
It happened with The Miz, Dolph Ziggler, Bray Wyatt and Breezango, and it’s happening to Jinder Mahal now, too.
If things go well, WWE could have given rise to a major player for years to come just over the course of a few short weeks by presenting him as a top contender and then proving it to be true with the title win, rather than promising the potential of it and then ripping it out from underneath him before he had a chance.
However, there have already been some problems with this situation WWE hasn’t been able to avoid, which isn’t good considering how fresh everything is.
For instance, not having Randy Orton make any appearance during the championship celebration made the segment feel anticlimactic. Mahal is still struggling to get comfortable on the mic and his big promo fell short of its potential, as this could have been a huge segment and just ended up being mediocre.
Also, it looks as though WWE’s creative team didn’t plan for this to happen and now has no idea what to do with Rusev and possibly even the Money in the Bank ladder match and gimmick as a whole.
Several weeks ago after the Superstar Shake-Up, seeds were planted that Rusev would get an opportunity for the WWE Championship at the Money in the Bank event, but the week of Backlash, his SmackDown appearance that had been previously advertised simply didn’t happen.
Now, not only is Rusev not getting a title shot, but he isn’t even scheduled for the ladder match. He may not appear at that show in any capacity, which is the complete opposite of fighting in the main event.
If WWE didn’t have Jinder Mahal’s title reign as a plan when they decided Money in the Bank would be a SmackDown-exclusive match in June, this could potentially throw everything into chaos.
In that scenario, we just aren’t sure if their original plans were better or worse than what we’ll end up getting over the next few months, as Money in the Bank has immense implications for the rest of the year and even WrestleMania.
This could be viewed in retrospect as a disaster which screwed up a number of feuds and forced WWE into a corner where they hot potato the title just to bounce it around between a few names.
For example, if the original idea was to have a heel win to cash in on Orton right after winning the briefcase, Mahal will have to drop the belt at Money in the Bank, then Orton will drop it immediately or at least soon afterward, making it seem like this is all being done just to get The Viper closer to Ric Flair and John Cena’s 16 title wins record.
Time will tell if Jinder Mahal has any true staying power as a main event caliber talent or if this is just a quick and cheap experiment to try to boost WWE’s notoriety in India before casting Mahal aside and devaluing him yet again, and we have no idea what repercussions (positive or negative) this will have on the future plans for SmackDown’s roster.
However, it’s at least something different to wake us up and make us question how anything can happen if WWE gets the itch to try something new every now and again.
What do you think about WWE’s decision to put the title on Jinder Mahal? Is it a marketing ploy or is there something more substantial behind it? Tell us your opinions in the comments section below!
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