Jinder Mahal has addressed a long-running rumour regarding a scrapped match against Brock Lesnar.
In 2017, Mahal reigned as the WWE Champion while Lesnar reigned as the Universal Champion. With the company holding champion vs. champion matches at Survivor Series during this period, it seemed that Mahal and Lesnar were set for a collision at the long-running pay-per-view. However, just over a week before the show, Mahal lost the title to AJ Styles on an episode of SmackDown in Manchester, UK, bringing the infamous reign to an end just over 6 months after it began.
For years, fans have speculated that the reason for the sudden switch was that Brock Lesnar refused to work with Mahal. However, according to the former World Champion, this is not correct. Speaking with Chris Van Vliet, Mahal believes that the switch happened as a heel vs. heel match would not have worked and Lesnar vs. Styles was the better match to have at the event:
“This is just my opinion, and obviously there’s a lot of misinformation on the internet. The headline came out, ‘Brock Lesnar refused to work with Jinder.’ I don’t think he refused. I just think it was he probably pitched for a match with AJ 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 AJ was phenomenal, no pun intended.
So yeah, I don’t think it was that he refused to work with me. I just think Brock has some pull and him and Paul Heyman probably said, Hey, we should talk to Vince and said book the match with AJ 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 had the title match. We get to the building. Michael Hayes tells me and AJ go talk to Vince, and send us to Vince’s office. Vince tells us you’re dropping the championship, now you’re going to chase it. AJ, you’re winning it tonight, you’ll work with Brock at Survivor Series, then me and AJ 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.”
Jinder Mahal Now A Free Agent
Back in April, Jinder Mahal was among multiple stars who were released from their WWE contracts. As the 90-day no compete has now expired, Mahal is free to appear for any promotion. Now competing under the name Raj Dhesi, the former WWE star will compete for Black Label Pro on July 26th against Kevin Ku.
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Featured image: WWE
