"It was very impressive to me" - Released star comments on Jinder Mahal's WWE Championship reign (Exclusive)
EC3 recently commented on Jinder Mahal's controversial WWE Championship reign in 2017, saying he was impressed by it.
The Modern Day Maharaja's push came out of nowhere after he won the title from Randy Orton at Backlash 2017. Fans were shocked by the development as Mahal was treading water until a few weeks before defeating Orton. Jinder Mahal remained the WWE Champion for nearly six months. He eventually lost the gold to AJ Styles on SmackDown in November, days before Survivor Series.
However, while speaking on Sportskeeda Wrestling's The Wrestling Outlaws, EC3 looked back fondly at Mahal's title reign. He stated that fans were quick to term the 36-year-old "boring" without noticing the hard work he put in. The former WWE star explained that it wasn't easy to sustain heel heat when working as a bad guy.
"I think his title reign came out of nowhere, too. So it was like make him believable because they wanted to put it on him so quick. So they had to work his way to legitimacy. He's one of those workers, wrestlers; if you some of his matches, the fans are like, 'Ah, Jinder is boring; he doesn't do anything.' You don't know how hard people are working sometimes, especially as a heel, to sustain and get heat and show agressesion and be in certain places at the right time," said EC3.
EC3 mentioned that, unlike other performers who tried to get cheered by fans despite being heels, Jinder Mahal worked like a "true heel."
"And that's something that taxes you cardio that people don't oppose to as opposed to, 'I'm a bad guy, cheer me.' He was always grinding, working hard, working as a classic, true heel. So when he became the champion and had that run, it was very impressive to me," added EC3. (0:52 - 1:41)
Check out the full video below:
Jinder Mahal recently showed up on WWE NXT
The Modern Day Maharaja recently showed up on NXT at New Year's Evil Night, where he, along with Sanga, confronted The Creed Brothers. Later in the show, Jinder Mahal defeated Julius Creed in his first NXT match in over a decade.
.@JinderMahal makes a shocking return to #WWENXT as he and @Sanga_WWE team up to attack The #CreedBrothers. https://t.co/oVGtFuozQR
He was also present on this week's edition of the company's developmental brand, where he helped Sanga and Veer Mahan defeat The Creed Brothers. Though it was suggested Mahal's time in WWE NXT would be short-lived, it remains to be seen how things pan out for him in the coming weeks and months.
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