WWE News: Triple H says 'the WWE hasn't presented the right pathways' for Indian wrestlers

What's the story?

The WWE may currently be enjoying having Jinder Mahal as its WWE title holder on Smackdown Live, but the self-proclaimed "Modern Day Maharaja" is still only one of two wrestlers with Indian heritage to make it big in the WWE.

However, the WWE, and more specifically Triple H, want to fix that.

In case you didn't know...

There's certainly no shying away from the fact that the WWE still has a long way to go in terms of representing ethnic minorities as top stars within the company. To this day an African-American has never held the WWE Title (clearly, I'm not counting the Rock, and obviously Mark Henry and Booker T have held the World Heavyweight Title) and despite India being a nation of wrestling fans, only two wrestlers of Indian descent have earned any kind of success in the WWE.

The first was The Great Khali who broke onto the wrestling scene in 2006 and it wasn't too long until he claimed the World Heavyweight Championship. However, Khali's position at the top of the company came to an end almost as quickly as it started when he eventually became a comedy wrestler, teaming with Hornswoggle as the Punjabi Playboy.

The second, as we all know, is Jinder Mahal, whose career seems to have gone in the opposite direction to the Great Khali's. He started in a small programme with Khali before quickly falling into obscurity as part of the jobber stable 3MB before leaving the company entirely. However, when he returned, he was catapulted to the top and is currently the SmackDown Live WWE champion.

The heart of the matter

Triple H's comments, as quoted from The National, reveal that he agrees that the WWE has not provided proper guidance to potential recruits from India. But he did say that the company intend to make some changes to fix things.

"The WWE hasn't presented the right pathways. If you were an athlete in India and you watch WWE and thought you really wanna do this, the pathway wasn't clear. How would you become WWE superstar nobody really knew"

He then went on to reveal the exciting news that by the end of the year the number of Indian wrestlers in the WWE will be at the highest it's ever been, meaning the odds that we could see another Jinder Mahal are pretty good.

"So we are doing some work and, by the end of the year, we will have 11 Indian talents … under training to be the next generation WWE superstar — and it is the most we ever had. And you will see it increase even further over the next few years,"

What's next?

The WWE is heading on an Indian tour soon, and all signs point towards the WWE keeping the belt on Mahal, so whatever happens, it's likely that there will be an Indian champ in the company for quite a while yet.

Hopefully, the WWE can help the other Indian personnel they have signed to develop, and fingers crossed, we'll have ourselves another South Asian champion!

Author's Take

In a world that seems to be getting increasingly more divided by the day, the news that Triple H and the WWE want to make their wrestling company more inclusive and represent more wrestlers from all walks of life is surely welcome news.