WWE has had it’s fair share of odd pairings when it’s come to WWE title matches, but none have received the amount of backlash (pun intended) as the seemingly sudden ascension of Jinder Mahal from enhancement to #1 contender in the past few weeks as he tries to end Randy Orton‘s 13th World Championship run (although as we showed yesterday, the narrative for it has been going on for nearly a year). Which is odd, because when Heath Slater went from a losing streak of a year and suddenly won the Smackdown Live tag team titles, no one said anything about Slater’s past win/loss record then – they just said “he deserved it”. But with Jinder Mahal, they look nowhere past his win/loss record and say it makes no sense. Ah, hypocrisy. Regardless of whether this is to enhance the burgeoning India market (it is), this is also the WWE beginning to create new stars to mix into the upper mid-card and main event picture, and someone like Jinder Mahal definitely fits the mold of “someone new”. To be fair, Dolph Ziggler and Sami Zayn have had rather sub .500 win loss records the past year, but I don’t think anyone would be upset if they suddenly found themselves in the title picture again. But I digress.

WWE Backlash Preview: Randy Orton vs Jinder Mahal

In hindsight, part of the reason for the outcry probably has more to do with Randy Orton than Jinder Mahal (despite Mahal getting the heat). Orton was coming out of the WWE’s version of the Lost television series. It just had one of the most intricate and fascinating storylines in recent memory – Randy Orton infiltrating and cunningly dismantling the entire Wyatt Family while appearing to be Bray Wyatt‘s most loyal supporter – only to have it completely blown off by a nonsensical finale. The emotional build-up seemed wasted and every possible angle people were theorizing about got shot down when Wyatt went to RAW before the story could play out. The lauded House of Horrors match from Payback backfired and left more questions than answers for the great Wyatt story – the most common question being “What the **** was THAT?” The lacklustre ending to an amazingly complex story of subterfuge left Orton’s latest title reign feel lazy and unnecessary. Which lead to the rise of Jinder Mahal.

People were still so emotionally pissed off at the conclusion of the Wyatt-Orton storyline that they were hoping a stronger feud with the likes of AJ Styles, Kevin Owens or the incoming Shinsuke Nakamura could at least take their minds off the travesty that the Orton-Wyatt story crashed and burned into. But instead they got a man who had no prior main event experience seemingly coming out of nowhere. They were blindsided twice in a span of several weeks. Sadly, it was Jinder who ended up on the wrong side of the rage.

But with all that aside, what we have here is actually a real opportunity. Much like when The Kid pinned Razor Ramon to become the 1-2-3 Kid, or when Owen Hart shockingly pinned his brother Bret ‘Hitman’ Hart to open WrestleMania X, we have a character who has suddenly been enhanced and promoted levels of the card by shocking circumstances. This isn’t exactly new to wrestling – while slowburn storylines have the most emotional investment, these kind of shocking advancements in card status are also vital parts of the narrative. Just like real life, sometimes unlikely fighters get a knockout punch or score a big win and they gain the confidence to up their game to their actual potential. After all, while people are still lambasting on the Battle Royal win that saw Mahal gain the #1 contendership, since then he’s gone on to pin Sami Zayn, Randy Orton (in a 6-man tag match) and AJ Styles in the last three weeks. He’s making up for lost time indeed and going into tonight’s WWE Championship match on a strong note.

Randy Orton, unfortunately, has had his steam knocked out of him, primarily because of the letdown of the Wyatt story. Randy was doing some of his most inspired and tantalizing work in years during that run and suddenly he’s back to being boring face Orton. A character that has always been 50/50 with the fans. Orton is a natural heel and his face personas always feel a little blah. When he wants to, Orton can be one of the best workers in the company – he’s got a natural athleticism and he has a great head for storytelling. He just needs to feel the motivation and the story first to do so.

This match is going to have a lot of eyes on it tonight, for good or bad reasons. While there is a strong vocal component cheering for Jinder Mahal to become the latest feel good story of a deserving worker who has toiled in the WWE for years (his first run was four years, from 2010 to 2014), playing any silly part they put on him. Now he’s back after two years on the indie circuit (much like his former 3MB partner Drew McIntyre) and he’s hungrier. But there’s also a large contingent expecting this match to be a failure. A lacklustre Randy Orton as champion facing an “undeserving” challenger in Jinder Mahal. And chances are both these fighters know that.

This is a match that both men are going to be taking seriously – but no one more seriously than Jinder Mahal. This may be a quick blip to spike the India market, but this is also his opportunity to show that he can rise to the occasion in the WWE main roster. Only two men can ever truly be in the main event picture at one time, but a strong showing will keep Mahal in the upper mid-card with main event opportunities, which is a far cry from his Main Event days. And Randy Orton is a company guy. He knows that the fans are expecting a dud and he will do his utmost to get the match over and get Jinder over. Neither man is taking this challenge likely.

With that being said, you now have to ask yourself: Is Jinder a transitional feud until WWE creative resets a longer narrative for Orton? After all, according to all reports, Bray Wyatt himself didn’t find out he was being sent to Raw until the night of the Superstar Shake Up, so obviously Smackdown Live creative didn’t exactly have anything new officially set up because they thought they had more life in the Wyatt story. Or does the WWE want to continue to build the India market for a bit longer and create a new WWE Superstar in the process?

Looking at the past few weeks, it feels like more foundation was laid for a Jinder Mahal title win tonight than a loss. He defeated AJ Styles and Sami Zayn en route to tonight’s showdown. By placing the belt on a heat magnet like Jinder Mahal, it opens up the possibility of a Jinder Mahal vs AJ Styles feud for the World title, with Styles looking for payback for his cheated loss just this week. Zayn also will be looking for retribution.

Tonight’s match-up offers something that few title matches do these days and that’s the distinct possibility that either man could win – even the Las Vegas odds have been flip flopping the past week (as of this writing, Mahal is actually slightly favoured to win). Which means we’re probably going to see a stronger match than most even anticipate.

But when all is said and done, it will be the beginning of a new age on Smackdown Live. Tonight begins the Age of the Maharaja.