5 Reasons why Jinder Mahal is your new number 1 contender for the WWE Championship
Going into the Six Pack Challenge on SmackDown Live to determine the Number 1 contender for the WWE Championship, nobody expected Jinder Mahal to emerge victorious (unless you are a regular reader of our site, considering we predicted it first).
With the help of The Bollywood Boyz, Jinder beat the odds and will now challenge Randy Orton for the top prize on SmackDown Live at the Backlash pay-per-view. While he was, at best, Rusev’s lackey on Raw, Jinder is now officially a top heel on SmackDown. Why did the company decide to invest so much into a man who's remained in the background for most of his career?
We can only speculate. Here are five probable reasons.
#5 Breaking into the market that exists in India
India is the second most populous country in the world, and you’re guaranteed to find many WWE patrons among a billion people. While The Great Khali was the closest thing that the country ever had to a top level WWE superstar, his lack of in-ring skills ended his career rather prematurely.
When WWE hosted their recent live event in India, the babyfaces got a positive reaction, while the heels got a negative one (Roman Reigns was cheered like a babyface). Something that one does not see in modern-day WWE. In addition to all this, WWE makes a lot of money from Ten Sports, a channel that broadcasts WWE action across the country.
While Jinder Mahal is more Canadian than Indian, he’s the closest thing to an Indian superstar. Thankfully, he's also better in the ring than The Great Khali. It’ll be interesting to see whether he gets a babyface reaction in India if WWE does visit the country for a live event.
According to reports, this is exactly why WWE booked his mega-push and handed him his first and biggest win in 5 long years.