Jinder Mahal featured on a recent edition of Talk Is Jericho, speaking to host Chris Jericho on various topics, with the most prominent among them being the change in the original plans for his character made by Vince McMahon.
Jinder Mahal (Yuvraj Singh Dhesi) first performed for WWE back in 2011 until his departure from the promotion in 2014. The 30-year old returned to the company last year with a drastically changed physical appearance, sporting a low-fat highly-defined muscular look- something that pro-wrestling insiders have time-and-again opined is what Vince McMahon considers desirable in his top performers.
This week on #TIJ!
Wed- #WWESmackdown #1 contender @JinderMahal!
Fri- @PaulStanleyLive returns to talk #Revenge! @KISSOnline— Talk Is Jericho (@TalkIsJericho) May 15, 2017
The WWE higher-ups were apparently very high on Mahal since his return last year, and had been planning his push for quite some time now, especially when you factor in the company’s current global expansion plans in the Indian sub-continent and the Middle-East. The Maharajah spoke to Y2J stating that although his bosses did intend to push him as a heel, his current Anti-America gimmick wasn’t a part of the original plans. Here are a few excerpts from his statements regarding the same-
“So when I finished calling the match, one of the writers was like ‘hey Vince changed your promo’ and I was like ‘okay, bring it to me’ so they brought it to me and I had read the America comment and all that and I was like ‘ugh I like the old promo better.’ Like it was something like, ‘I tried being peaceful but nobody was listening but now I have all you guys’ attention, I just beat five of SmackDown’s very best and I did it all alone.’ Something like that, it was just a regular heel promo but the new one was like: ‘You Americans, this and that’ — I was like ugh I don’t like it, but Vince wrote it, it’s okay. But I did it and the reaction that I got I was like ‘ah man, Vince is a genius.’ He knows exactly what draws the most heat”
Mahal elucidated on his experience with Vince McMahon after the segment-
“It’s weird, he knows what’s going to draw the most heat. I didn’t see it at first but as soon as I heard the reaction — actually when I came back to I sat with Vince and he was like, because we went over time already and he was like, ‘forget about the time, let them boo even more before you start talking’ so I was like, okay.”
Jinder Mahal will challenge Randy Orton for the latter’s WWE championship in the main-event of WWE Backlash on Sunday, May 21st at the Allstate Arena in Rosemont, Illinois.
Ah! If it isn’t the Maharajah! Just a fun fact for all you smarks out there- Jinder Mahal, who is presently portraying an angry Anti-American who hails from Punjab, India, doesn’t speak a lick of Hindi, which by the way is the national language of the Asian nation. The man who speaks “Two Languages!” is in fact an Indo-Canadian who’s fluent in English and speaks a bit of Punjabi. Well, that’s pro-wrestling for you folks!
