WWE News - Former World Champion cleared to return after 10-month absence

Former WWE Champion Jinder Mahal has confirmed that he has been cleared to return to in-ring competition.

The 33-year-old suffered a knee injury against Mustafa Ali at a WWE live event in June 2019 and he was forced to undergo surgery two weeks later.

Mahal teased before the 2020 Royal Rumble that he could return at the event when he said “back soon” in an Instagram post, but he did not appear on the show.

Now, three months later, Wrestling Rumors’ Chris Featherstone says the former 3MB member has told him that he is ready to return and he is waiting to be reintroduced to television.

“I reached out to former WWE Champion Jinder Mahal to check on both his WWE status, as well as the status of his injury. Mahal stated that he is currently ‘cleared and waiting’.”

Jinder Mahal’s WWE status

After his five-month WWE Championship reign in 2017, Jinder Mahal won the United States Championship in 2018 and made it to the final of the Mixed Match Challenge tournament with Alicia Fox.

In 2019, “The Modern Day Maharajah” won the 24/7 Championship from R-Truth on a golf course and on an airport tarmac before suffering the injury that ruled him out of action for the last 10 months.

Since then, the most notable mention of Mahal on WWE programming came in October 2019 when he was drafted from SmackDown to RAW as part of the WWE draft.

The majority of injured Superstars did not get selected in the draft, but the former WWE Champion was chosen as the #18 pick on the second night of the roster changes.

Despite his injury status at the time, Mahal was even picked ahead of the likes of Samoa Joe (#21), The Miz (#22), Baron Corbin (#24) and Rey Mysterio (#26).