Well, hell froze over, human sacrifice, dogs and cats living together… mass hysteria! Yes, all because Jinder Mahal has won the WWE Championship. While a significant portion of the WWE Universe applauded the move – Jinder was getting nearly as equal amounts of chants for his victory as Randy Orton was – a large portion of the internet fan base was adamantly against it, based purely on the fact that prior to his #1 Contendership acquisition in a 6-pack challenge earlier this year on Smackdown Live, he was primarily enhancement. But there’s a fundamental reason why people didn’t like this and that’s because Jinder Mahal is a heel. The wins and losses argument – that meaning that a wrestlers previous win-loss record in WWE matches – is not always a great one to use in a world of fantasy. Lots of main event guys succumb to more losses than wins, yet they still remain in contention for title opportunities instead of sliding back down the ladder. In pro wrestling, how you were portrayed in the past has zero relevance of how you can be portrayed now.
First let’s start with the basic argument – there was no story. Well, we’re not going to get into that again here – we already wrote an entire article on the exact storyline that Jinder Mahal has had, from his re-debut last year until this past week. There was a storyline there – the problem is more that people chose not to pay attention to it, under the assumption he was forever going to be an enhancement talent and not that he was slowly being raised. Which he was – although he was frequently the pinned partner in his tandem with Rusev, pairing with Rusev near the top of the tag division is hardly an enhancement role. Enhancement talent frequently only appear on Main Event or lose singles matches to lower card guys. Jinder Mahal was losing to the likes of Sami Zayn, Finn Balor and Roman Reigns on Raw. If you want to hold onto the fact that wins and losses matter – that it’s a fictional portrayal of a “real life” combat sports promotion – then you have to take who the fighter is being paired off against as being just as legitimate. If the promoter for Raw felt that booking Jinder Mahal against the lines of Balor, Reigns and Zayn was a level of parity, then they’ve already established the narrative that he is of at least mid-card level and is being given opportunities to build himself higher. For the record, prior to his victory last night, Jinder Mahal’s televised win-loss record for 2017 was 8 wins and 5 losses. In the exact same time frame, Sami Zayn is 4 wins and 8 losses. Would you have reacted as badly if Sami Zayn had won that #1 contendership? Because if we’re going off the fact wins and losses matter, Mahal is hands above more deserving than Zayn.
The second problem is that the underdog story is never looked at the same when a villain follows the same path. When characters like the 1-2-3 Kid, Daniel Bryan, Sami Zayn and the likes go on long losing streaks, their losses build their character into a story of redemption. But when underdog heels get losses, they are tossed away in many fans eyes as just enhancement. They don’t consider that these losses motivate the heels as much as the faces to push harder – except instead of redemption, they are looking for a singularly more evil endgame. Revenge. Which is exactly what Jinder Mahal did last night. As we went through in our article outlying Jinder’s storyline the past year, we saw a man try and find inner peace to become a better wrestler, saw that his inner peace came from anger management/sensitivity therapy (which ultimately failed, turning him heel again), then try and pair with a high mid-card wrestler (which fell apart due to both men being on revenge missions), and finally Jinder deciding to get his own underlings rather than being someone else’s. In doing so, he was free to unleash his rage and become WWE Champion. It was a classic underdog story, just told from a heel’s perspective.
Speaking of 1-2-3 Kid, he has a similar rise to upper mid-card status seemingly out of nowhere as well in the WWF. And his “story” was far shorter than Jinder Mahal’s. Sean Waltman’s first WWE persona began as an enhancement talent known simply as “The Kid” when he debuted on Monday Night Raw on April 26, 1993. He lost his first match to Doink the Clown. The following Raw he lost to Mr. Hughes. Both cases he lost to talent that the WWE was pushing to greater heights. Everyone just assumed The Kid was a new talent more in the mold of Barry Horowitz and “Iron” Mike Sharpe than Owen Hart. But on his third Raw appearance, The Kid did the unthinkable. He pinned Razor Ramon. And not a Razor Ramon in decline, but a Razor Ramon on the rise. He had just battled WWE Champion Bret ‘Hitman’ Hart in a hard fought loss at Royal Rumble ’93, and a few weeks earlier at WrestleMania IX, he’d beaten former WWE Champion Bob Backlund on the Grandest Stage of Them All. And in a few short months, he would win his first WWE Intercontinental Champion. Sure, if the internet had been around like it is today, many people would have complained for days that a jobber like The Kid (who became the 1-2-3 Kid from that day on) had beaten a veteran like Scott Hall on Raw, but that moment began The Kid’s real story, elevating him to a new status of legitimacy that carried over when he left the WWF at his peak to join Hall and Nash in the WCW with the nWo as Syxx, that then carried through to his return to join D-X as X-Pac. In wrestling, the past never justifies nor quantifies a story – it’s how the story ends that defines whether a story or chapter worked. And Jinder’s story is just beginning. After all, has anyone considered the continuing story of Jinder past Orton? After all, we all know that the next challenger is the returning Rusev. Rusev and Jinder are former partners who split less than amicably. Suddenly you have a World title match with backstory…
Some others will point to the fact that WWE only put the title on him to attract to a new market – in particular, India. While that’s true, WWE – and wrestling in general – has been doing this for decades. This is hardly anything new. The WWE put the WWE Championship on Shawn Michaels to attract a younger demographic than the aging lot who grew up on Harley Race, Ric Flair and Bob Backlund. They pushed Bret Hart, Edge and Trish Stratus to build up the Canadian market. They constantly bring in Latino stars, like Rey Mysterio Jr., Eddie Guerrero, and Alberto Del Rio, to attract the Mexican and Latin American market. Wrestlers like Sheamus, Paige and Finn Balor were pushed to elevate the UK marketplace (Sheamus is one of the WWE’s highest followed Superstars on Twitter with over 4 million followers, nearly twice that of Roman Reigns). This is nothing new. The only difference is that your disdain for the character choice is making the target market a back up to your disdain – but you had no problems before when it was a character you liked.
Which goes back to the second point. None of what happened to Jinder Mahal is new or out of place in the world of professional wrestling. The only difference is this time it was a heel who played out the underdog (or underhanded dog) storyline and because wrestling fans aren’t used to a villainous character evolving from the bottom up (usually they are top level faces who simply turn or put on a new shirt), his character seemingly emerged out of nowhere. When in fact, he had been there the whole time.
Finally, let’s look at a similar story that happened in PROGRESS in the UK a few years back. A story that many regard as the greatest story PROGRESS has ever told. The story of Jimmy Havoc. Jimmy Havoc, one of the top UK indie stars in the world right now, began his PROGRESS career losing every match. Until one day he just got himself a World Championship match against PROGRESS Champion Mark Andrews. Not only did Jimmy Havoc win the title that night (his first proper pinfall victory in the company) he went on to hold the title for 609 days afterwards. Prior to his PROGRESS Championship match, in the 7 months leading up to it, Havoc’s record was one win and six losses (and his one win was by disqualification). Jinder Mahal was 8-5 going into his World Championship match. The difference? Jimmy Havoc just looks cooler. Because if you’re going off win-losses, there was no reason why PROGRESS should have booked a 1-6 fighter against their Champion if WWE can’t book an 8-5 wrestler for theirs.
Regardless whether you liked it or didn’t like it, Jinder Mahal is your new WWE Champion. And for whatever reason, he is now the heel face of the company. And whether you watch to kayfabe see his ass get beat or legitimately want to see someone else take that belt off him just so someone more “credible” is holding it, people are going to watch. Which at the end of the day, isn’t that what it’s all about?
Why @JinderMahal ??
Because its a Fkn BUSINESS that caters to a WORLDWIDE audience.
(ps…Congrats Jinder. Great job!!)
— Bully Ray (@bullyray5150) May 22, 2017
Anything can happen when given an opportunity…
— HEATHXXII (@HEATHXXII) May 22, 2017
Congrats to the NEW @WWE Champion @JinderMahal. Enjoy this moment fella cause you worked ure ass off to get it. #WellDeserved #champ pic.twitter.com/MN40cLMNXn
— Sheamus (@WWESheamus) May 22, 2017
