Controversial Former WWE Champion In Line For Massive Push

WWE’s main roster looks much different now than it did just a month ago, and the changes keep on coming.

In addition to part-time names like The Undertaker, Brock Lesnar and Goldberg all disappearing from Raw or SmackDown following WrestleMania 36, WWE recently released more than 20 wrestlers as part of cost-cutting measures related to COVID-19. In the weeks since WWE’s flagship pay-per-view, its suddenly smaller roster has paved the way for new names—like the Zelina Vega-backed stable of Austin Theory, Andrade and Angel Garza—to rise up the card, particularly on a Raw brand that has noticeably focused on rising new talents over the past few weeks.

On the April 27th episode of Monday Night Raw, Jinder Mahal also returned to the mix after missing roughly 10 months of action following major knee surgery, and the former WWE Champion—whose controversial 2017 reign ignited a huge debate among wrestling fans—looks to be in line for a big push once again.

Chris Featherstone of Wrestling Rumors broke the news of Mahal’s pending return a shortly before Mahal’s return, writing, “I reached out to former WWE Champion Jinder Mahal to check on both his WWE status, as well as the status of his injury. Mahal stated that he is currently ‘cleared and waiting.’” Well, he didn’t have to wait very long.

Mahal—who had been out of action since June 2019, when he underwent surgery to repair a ruptured patellar tendon—returned on that April 27th edition Raw, where he picked up a short squash match victory over Akira Tozara. Following his easy win, Mahal told WWE that he felt “disrespected” as WWE pushed the fact that Mahal is a former WWE Champion. Might that be a sign of things to come?

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While recovering from injury, Mahal was drafted back to Raw in October 2019, ending a very brief and forgettable run on SmackDown that only began in April 2019 when he was sent to the blue brand in April 2019 as part of the “Superstar Shakeup.” It was, of course, on SmackDown where Mahal had his most success as a WWE superstar back in 2017. That’s when the previously overlooked star came out of nowhere shortly after WrestleMania 33 to get a massive push and ultimately defeat Randy Orton for the WWE Championship at Backlash in May of that year. Mahal’s surprising WWE title win was only bested by the length of his title reign, which lasted nearly six months and was widely criticized. Mahal’s title push was considered to be a result of WWE’s desire to expand into the Indian market, and “The Modern Day Maharajah” took a lot of the blame for SmackDown’s disappointing TV viewership and live show attendance during that time.

Mahal was even labeled by many as “one of the worst WWE Champions of all-time,” at least in part because he went from lower card enhancement talent to WWE Champion in the blink of an eye and WWE simply expected fans to buy into him in that role without properly building him up as a top star. While Mahal quickly became a loathed heel as champion, the widespread belief was that he was generating “go away” heat rather than legitimate heel heat. However, Mahal improved considerably as both a talker and in-ring performer during his run as WWE Champion, and even though he was elevated to the world title picture far too quickly, he did demonstrate that he could be a solid midcard heel with the right booking.

Once Mahal’s WWE title reign ended at the hands of AJ Styles in the fall of 2017, he slid back down the card before ultimately winning the United States Championship at WrestleMania 34 in April 2018. The midcard title picture is where Mahal’s push should have started to begin with, and had WWE taken that more gradual approach with his push, it’s likely that fans would have been signing a different tune in regards to the way he was quickly catapulted up the card. Now that Mahal has been away for nearly a year, that lengthy hiatus from TV should allow him to reemerge as a solid midcarder on Raw, but current circumstances on the red brand may expedite his push.

The red brand, after all, is really lacking in the heel department at the moment due to the absences of villainous stars like Lesnar and Orton, and even though Mahal certainly isn’t everyone’s cup of tea, he could do well on Raw under the guidance of Paul Heyman, who has shined a noticeably bigger spotlight on new talent.

Mahal isn’t a “new” talent in the traditional sense of the word, but with Raw currently unable to focus on its usual heel stars as the red brand has reportedly been working with what is essentially a skeleton crew, Mahal is in prime position to take advantage of that given the lack of strong heels on the red brand. Just yesterday, WWE Champion Drew McIntyre sent out a tweet indicating that he’s moving on from Seth Rollins, which has many speculating about where McIntyre goes from here:

Might Mahal be next in line? Given the way WWE has promoted Mahal since he came back, you have to think that’s a very realistic possibility, but even if it doesn’t happen, the controversial former WWE Champion figures to be elevated up the card in the coming weeks and months.

Like it or not.