Jinder Mahal was not listed as ‘active talent’ on WWE roster prior to Seth Rollins program

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** Guest appearing on Insight with Chris Van Vliet was Raj Dhesi a.k.a. Jinder Mahal. In April, his time with WWE came to an end as he was part of a batch of talent releases. Dhesi recalled being told that while he was managing Indus Sher (Veer & Sanga), there were discussions of him no longer being a wrestler. That was told to him by a writer and he saw a roster sheet where he was not listed as an active talent. Mahal would go on to have a World Heavyweight Title match on WWE Raw against Seth Rollins.

I always stay ring ready. Actually, while I was managing Indus Sher, when we got drafted to Raw, I was told that I’m no longer a wrestler, I’m just a manager. But I still stayed in shape… Yeah, yeah, yeah (they told me that) because I was pitching. Well, the writer told me. I was pitching all kinds of storylines, like six-man tags or matches for myself where Indus Sher is managing me and nothing was happening and I asked the writer, I said, ‘What’s the deal?’ And I also know this because I saw the roster sheet. Male heels, Raw, SmackDown male heels, tag teams. I wasn’t listed under male heels. There was the male heel tag teams, Indus Sher, and I was in the brackets. So, as a manager role. So I wasn’t even listed as an active talent and I asked the writer, I said, ‘Hey, was it discussed that I’m not wrestling anymore?’ He said, ‘Yeah, yeah, it was brought up that you’re just gonna manage Indus Sher.’ But then I had the match with Seth Rollins. Luckily, I was in shape already. I stayed in shape. Because that could have went the opposite way where I started eating desserts in catering every week. But, I’m always ring ready, but, motivation comes and goes, right? It’s very hard to stay dialed in, super dialed in year-round. Generally, if I know something big is coming up, it’s a little bit easier but now that I know that I get to spread my wings, yeah, it’s motivation.

Looking back at highlights from his career, Dhesi addressed the idea that Brock Lesnar did not want to work with him at Survivor Series 2017 and that’s why he dropped the WWE Championship to A.J. Styles before the pay-per-view. Dhesi believes Lesnar and Paul Heyman pitched for the change because stylistically, Lesnar versus Styles is the better match. He spoke about the WWE Title change in Manchester, England and found out that day that he was losing the title. He mentioned that it was on the day of Backlash 2017 that he found out he was winning the WWE Championship.

This is just my opinion and obviously, there’s a lot of misinformation on the internet, right? And the headline came out, ‘Brock Lesnar refused to work with Jinder.’ I don’t think he refused. I just think… he probably pitched for a match with A.J. (Styles) because stylistically, it is a much better match. Me and Brock are both heels. Who’s gonna put heat on who? It was gonna be a flat match. It would have just been him suplexing me a bunch of times, maybe Singh Bros get involved. But the match he had with A.J. was phenomenal. No pun intended (he laughed). So, yeah, I don’t think it was that he refused to work with me. I just think, Brock, he has some pull and him and Paul Heyman probably said, hey, we should talk to Vince (McMahon) and said, hey, put the match with A.J. Styles, which is okay. I have to lose a championship at some point anyway. I had it for six months and I didn’t know that I was losing the championship until the day of. We were in Manchester and we have the title match. We get to the building, Michael Hayes tells me and A.J. to go talk to Vince, send us to Vince’s office. That’s when Vince tells us, to me, ‘You’re dropping the championship. Now you’re gonna chase it. A.J., you’re winning it tonight, you’ll work with Brock at Survivor Series.’ Then me and A.J. at Night of Champions, one more championship match and that was it. Yeah, I found out on the same day I’m winning it. Lost it the same way, found out the same day.

Earlier that year, Dhesi wrestled Randy Orton in a Punjabi Prison match at WWE Battleground. He said the Punjabi Prison ‘sucked’ to compete in.

So first off, the Punjabi Prison match sucks, it’s terrible. It’s so hard. The inside cage is the blue, old school cage, the cage match. You can hit it as hard as possible and it won’t even make a noise. It was terrible, and then just the crowd reaction, they couldn’t really see, the people in the arena, because there’s two cages so when we’re on the inside, there’s two cages, they couldn’t really see, and it was just painful. Kendo sticks, chair shots, everything. But then, The Great Khali. So, actually, funny story. So, I knew Khali was gonna come. Singh Bros knew, Randy (Orton) knew, nobody else knew. It was supposed to be a big secret. They have the Punjabi Prison tarped off, like all the way from the roof. Kick everybody out of the bowl, no security guard, no one’s in there. But they gotta get Khali ringside to rehearse. So, they wheeled him in on basically like a buggy between crash pads. Like, what are you guys doing? They tried their best to hide him but everybody saw him. Yeah, he’s pretty big so… Khali saved my championship, I won and at the end, he raised the championship like he won it. So it was good. It was amazing and actually, Khali’s hand is so big. He’s patting me on the back but it feels like someone’s slapping me. He’s like, ‘Yeah good job, good job.’ He’s slapping my back and I’m trying to block it with my elbow. That’s the last thing I want right now.

According to Dhesi, there were talks of the match coming back and it would’ve been for a bout between him and Roman Reigns.

Actually, I was supposed to possibly have one with Roman Reigns at Extreme Rules. I think we just had a regular straight-up match and it was in Chicago too. There was talk of the Punjabi Prison match coming back, yes. Me and Roman in the Punjabi prison… Yeah (he was not on board & expressed that), just like Brock (Lesnar).

He went on to speak about dropping the United States Championship to Jeff Hardy. Dhesi brought up their match from the Greatest Royal Rumble and the spot when Hardy did the Whisper in the Wind that did not connect but Dhesi still fell. He says the mishap was because of The Bollywood Boyz (Gurv Sihra & Harv Sihra). Dhesi thought Vince McMahon would be upset about it, but McMahon found it funny.

And then we went to Saudi Arabia for the rematch (at the Greatest Royal Rumble) and I gotta clear the air about the botch that’s super viral with Jeff Hardy hitting the Whisper in the Wind that doesn’t touch me and I take a bump, which I get a lot of flak for online. It was actually Singh Bros’ fault. It was Sunil Singh’s fault because usually when we do anything from the top rope, he tells me, ‘I’m selling.’ He would say, ‘Not now, not now, not now, not now. Okay, now.’ So he’s telling me, ‘Not now, not now, not now, not now’ and then I feel something touch my back and I was like — I don’t know. It was just like an instant reaction. I took a bump. But what I felt was actually just wind. That’s how he gets the name, the Whisper in the Wind. I felt the Whisper in the Wind, took a big bump and when we came back, I thought Vince (McMahon) was gonna be pissed and I was like, ‘Oh Vince, sorry about the thing.’ At first he’s like, ‘What are you talking about?’ I’m like, ‘Oh, the thing that I missed.’ He’s like, ‘Ah!’ And he starts laughing. Luckily, he wasn’t mad. He just had a big laugh.

** A new interview with Shane Haste was rolled out by Irish Wrestling & Entertainment. The IWGP and NJPW STRONG Openweight Tag Team Champion looked back at his time with WWE. He said that run included some of the worst times in his life. He recounted the constant negative feedback. There was someone who gave him the advice of coming back through Gorilla Position and talking down on himself to beat others to it.

It (WWE run) was exciting for a while and then, yeah, some of the worst times in my life being there. It was awful, and I get it. Trainers and producers and other people there, wrestlers there, everyone’s just trying to keep a f*cking job. Especially around that time. Everyone’s just trying to keep a job so, to keep your job, you have to look like you’re giving a lot of criticism and stuff like that. That’s what they see on paper. Like, oh, that’s a lot of feedback. Positive feedback? There’s like a whole year that I don’t think we got any positive feedback. But, you would just be so worried coming back through the curtain because you just know you were gonna get sh*t on because that’s the only kind of criticism that some people could give you is negative criticism, and it’s just negative, negative, negative. Someone gave me the good advice of, ‘When you get back behind the curtain, just be upset. Be like really down on yourself. Beat them to it. So if you come back and go, ah! That was sh*t! That sucked! That was the worst thing ever. What am I doing? People are like, oh no, no. It wasn’t that bad.’ That was the only way to get any sort of positive criticism.

He admitted that he gets jealous watching the current WWE product because it appears to be more free-flowing opposed to the environment he operated in while there.

So there’s no bad feeling (towards WWE) and things like that. I get jealous watching how the product is now… It looks like they’ll just try anything. Someone has an idea, they’re like, yep, let’s see if it sticks and that’s how it should be. Especially NXT Level Up, that’s how it should be.

** GHC Heavyweight Champion Kaito Kiyomiya was interviewed by the official Pro Wrestling NOAH website. He commented on NXT talents (Tavion Heights & Josh Briggs) competing in the 2024 N-1 Victory tournament:

I think this is a chance to promote NOAH to the world, and with the participation of NXT wrestlers in the league (N-1 Victory), I think it will be an opportunity to pull fans from around the world to NOAH through WRESTLE UNIVERSE. Of course, I am looking forward to personally having matches (with WWE wrestlers), but right now, no matter who the opponent is, as the GHC Heavyweight Champion, I have a strong desire to bring more NOAH to the world and spread it through my matches.

** Episode two of Cody Rhodes’ ‘What Do You Wanna Talk About?’ series is up on WWE’s YouTube channel. Joining him this go-round was L.A. Knight. Rhodes shared with Knight that Chris Park (Abyss) told him that Knight is a guy he’d love in the locker room. Knight was happy to hear that and more so that it came from Park. Knight opened up about getting used to being the individual who went into new environments and not everyone being a fond him.

Rhodes: You wanna know who told me you were the real deal? That gave me the, like, ‘Yo, he’s the real deal. You’ll love wrestling him, you’ll love having him in the locker room.’ Do you know who told me?

Knight: I’m curious.

Rhodes: Abyss.

Knight: Really?

Rhodes: Yeah.

Knight: Okay. Good. I love Abyss.

Rhodes: And that’s someone for sure, if he says something, you know it’s true. He has no reason to lie.

Knight: Abyss has dealt with me on all different levels. I mean, in the ring, outside the ring, all that stuff; producer, everything so yeah man, I’ve always had a great relationship with him and I love that. So I love the fact that he said that because you know, again, I’m so used to, again, going into those situations, everybody hates me for the first little bit. I just expect that, and so, sometimes I almost lean into it where I’m just like, alright, if that’s the case, I’ll let them have that for a little bit and then eventually, we’ll get to the good stuff.

** In Bull Nakano’s series for Tokyo Sports, she wrote about venturing to the USA to compete for WWF in 1994. She remembers WWE paying based off the number of people in attendance. Nakano thinks the most she was ever paid was 1 million yen (6,400 USD) for a three-minute match.

But the pay was good. I received a base salary from All Japan Women’s Pro-Wrestling, and at the time, the WWF paid a percentage of the 10,000 to 20,000 spectators that attended each show. At the time, the exchange rate was about 99 yen to the dollar, so I think the most I was paid was 1 million yen for three minutes. Nevertheless, I returned to Japan in 1994…

** When asked who he wants to face at WrestleMania 41, Braun Strowman told WWE – Die Woche that he wants it to be him versus Drew McIntyre for the World Heavyweight Championship. He mentioned that they’ve talked about it before and were close to getting it.

Drew McIntyre for the World Heavyweight Championship (is what I want at WrestleMania 41). Him and I have talked about this and wanted this and been close to getting it and it hasn’t happened but, I think him and I need a good feud that has a payoff at WrestleMania. We’re both two larger-than-life titans walking on this earth with the rest of these peasants in this locker room. I think it’s time that they give the big boys the spotlight and let us go out there and do what we do.

As far as celebrities who are involved in pro wrestling, Strowman said he’d like to do a tag match with music artist Jelly Roll. Jelly Roll is performing live at SummerSlam on August 3^rd.

Jelly Roll (is a celebrity I’d like to work with in WWE). I heard Jelly’s a big fan and stuff like that and whatnot and I love his story and what he’s been able to overcome through life and a lot of his story reflects a lot on mine and things like that so, I would love to have a tag match with Jelly Roll. Who would y’all like to see me and Jelly Roll tag against?

** Tickets have sold out for Shingo Takagi’s 20^th Anniversary event on September 7^th.

** The theme song for NJPW’s G1 Climax 34 is titled ‘LOUDER’ by ASH DA HERO x FLOW x ROTTENGRAFFTY.

** The Hitting The Turnbuckle Podcast welcomed Steve Maclin onto the show.

** July 18^th birthdays: R.J. City and Shahid Khan.

** Big E was interviewed by Adrian Hernandez.

** Evolution Results (7/18/24) from Shin-Kiba 1stRING in Tokyo, Japan
– Aki Shizuku & Momoka Hanazono def. Riara & Soy
– Dan Tamura vs. Towa Iwasaki – Time Limit Draw (15:00)
– Yuna Manase def. ZONES (9:09)
– AJPW TV Six-Man Tag Team Championships: Chihiro Hashimoto, Shuji Ishikawa & Yuu def. Maya Yukihi, Mayumi Ozaki & Suwama (c)
– Unagi Sayaka def. Chi Chi

** To promote TNA Slammiversary, Steph De Lander appeared on the Generation Of Wrestling podcast.

If any of the quotes from the following podcasts or video interviews are used, please credit those sources, and provide an H/T and link back to POST Wrestling for the transcriptions.