Why WWE creative can’t win with Jinder Mahal

Jinder Mahal is the No. 1 contender for the WWE Championship and the booking committee can’t win.

Oh, how I love the WWE Universe. Please never change. And that’s a knock on anybody as I’m one of you. There’s a reason that we call ourselves FanSided. We’re fans that get an amazing opportunity to get our opinions and thoughts out to the world, and seeing as how I’m a WWE fan, and have been for more than three decades, I’m taking this particular opportunity to bring you my thoughts on what happened with Jinder Mahal on Tuesday night’s episode of SmackDown Live.

The blue brand needed a WWE Championship match for Backlash, which takes place from the Allstate Arena in Chicago on May 21, so a Six-Pack Challenge was held last night to name a new No. 1 contender. Well, sort of. I mean, isn’t Bray Wyatt technically the No. 1 contender seeing as how he’s set to face champion Randy Orton next weekend at Payback?

Okay, maybe that’s getting a bit too picky but the winner of the House of Horrors match — does anybody really know what that is yet? — will be facing Jinder Mahal for the WWE Championship at Backlash. Yes, you read that right. Jinder Mahal defeated Sami Zayn, Luke Harper, Erick Rowan, Dolph Ziggler and Mojo Rawley to earn the right to face the WWE Champion at a pay-per-view.

Did you see that sentence I wrote above, the “Yes, you read that right” sentence? That essentially sums up the general consensus of how people felt about the result Tuesday night, don’t you think? Twitter exploded as soon as the match ended with cries of “Why?” and “Who?” and other things that aren’t really appropriate to put here. And I have no problem admitting that I might have had some of those same thoughts that a lot of you out there had but I also have no problem with the result. I’m aware that seems a little contradictory but isn’t that what we do? Isn’t that the beauty of being a wrestling fan, even if our logic often makes no sense? We love it when someone we like gets a shot they don’t really deserve but we hate it when someone we don’t like or think deserves it gets that spot, am I right? Allow me to elaborate.

For many years, John Cena had guys that he worked with constantly in his WWE Championship matches. There were numerous feuds with Edge — which were all fantastic — and obviously there’s the long history with Randy Orton. So in 2011, or any single day or year for that matter, I see comments on Twitter or random articles about how there’s no new blood in the title picture. Pleas of “give somebody else a chance” or woes of “uggghhh … why do we have to see this again?” run rampant on a daily basis. So what does WWE decide to do? They put R-Truth in the main event against John Cena at the Capitol Punishment pay-per-view. And what did the WWE Universe do? They blasted the choice because they didn’t like the decision, the very decision they specifically asked for. Yes, we all knew that Truth wasn’t going to win the title but that’s not really the point here, is it?

We know so many of the outcomes going in and yet we still tune in to watch in the hopes we get a good match. And honestly, that match really wasn’t that bad and Truth benefitted from that match for at least the next six-to-nine months. People just expected it to be and were never going to give it a chance at all. That’s exactly what’s going to happen with Jinder Mahal, so let’s talk quickly about how he got here.

After a couple of years away from WWE, Jinder came back last summer and it seemed pretty obvious that he was there to job to the bigger stars on the roster. He’s always been a very talented guy with a lot of upside but was one of those guys who just never had the right direction, even if 3MB was pretty funny. Quickly, on that note, if a guy like Heath Slater can be the hit of a summer, why can’t Jinder be the heel of a summer? Yes, I know it’s spring but that just sounded better, okay? When he started his little program with Rusev, people looked at it as a step backwards for Rusev instead of a step up for Jinder. Why? Because you don’t like him? Because you don’t think he can work? This is a talented guy, whether you like it or not.

Then there’s the arguments about which guy should have won on Tuesday night. Rowan or Harper would have been too obvious for you, right? So we can’t do that. Mojo, even coming off the Andre the Giant Memorial Battle Royal win, isn’t ready for the main event. Isn’t that what we say? Ziggler? How many chances has that guy had? That’s the usual response to that. And then there’s Sami Zayn, the internet darling who just can’t seem to find his place on either show. “El Generico deserves that spot and everyone knows it.” I saw a lot of that following the events of Tuesday night and I’m going to go ahead and poke holes in that one as well.

A lot of people are calling the shot that Jinder Mahal is getting “unjustified” because he can’t win on the lower portion of the card and now all of a sudden he’s getting a championship match? Ummm, what? Have you seen Sami Zayn’s win-loss record over the last six months? So just stop. Zayn will get his chance at some point and it will likely come at a bigger pay-per-view so do what Frankie tells you to do and just relax. For my younger readers, just Google what that means.

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You just can’t have it both ways. You want new faces in the title picture but you don’t like the faces — or heels in this case … so clever, aren’t I? — when they get there. Creative can’t win here, and maybe Jinder Mahal can’t either, but I’m okay with them at least trying to shake things up a bit and keep us on our toes. We complain when they get lazy but then we chastise them when they surprise us — see Goldberg vs. Brock Lesnar from Survivor Series. So let’s let them have this one and let Jinder have his time in the sun. But that would just make too much sense, wouldn’t it? Never change, people. Never change.