Remember when Jinder Mahal was WWE Champion?

[Demented]

The Man. The Myth. The Unhindered.

His name is up there with legends like Rice Flair, The Rick, Viktor, Patti Mayonnaise.

[Sponsored by Groose Wipes]

We really didn't know how great we had it back then.

["Gizzark" Mike Wronglevenay]

I'm going to be a Jinder apologist for years to come.

[EoE: Well There's Your Problem]

Jinder Mahal being WWE Champion is probably something we never shut up about.

[Oh Cry Me a Screwball]

I really wish I didn't.

[Deleted]

Give me this over Oldberg winning matches with 2 moves any day.

[Mozenrath]

I think he's probably not the worst WWE champion ever, but that he's honestly probably in the bottom three somewhere if we're not counting stuff like when Vince won, which was in the service of the Triple H and Austin feud.

[Jake, The Jake, Jake]

I was thinking about it, and 2017 was pretty much the year that killed all my interest in WWE. The end of 2016 was pretty exciting, especially on the Smackdown end, but in 2017 we got the Randy Orton sperm snake Bray Wyatt bug ring Mania match, Jinder’s World Title win and terrible reign filled with racism, predictable booking, and endless Randy Orton matches, Brock beating Joe and Braun in like five minutes a piece and effectively ending them both as viable threats to his title (all in service of building up a Roman Reigns Wrestlemania victory that of course never happened), and the embarrassing Roman and Cena feud that both men came out of looking worse off.

[KAMALARAMBO: BOOMSHAKALAKA!!!]

His push? I don't know why they had to stall the Mahal.

[Ben Wyatt]

They needed to build him up over a few months and then after winning the title.  he needed a finish other than "Jinder is toast, Signh brothers distract opponent and get destroyed, Jinder wins with Kallas/roll-up"  Hell, you could still have him win via flukey ways (see: JBL's reign) and maybe, just *maybe* his reign isn't considered the worst ever. 

Don't get me wrong, his reign was never going to be great, but he never had a chance from moment one

[Chiral]

Top tier of worst world champions. Not his fault but f*** that was a dire...half year? What a miserable run.

[Allie Kitsune]

Apr 1, 2020 9:16:01 GMT -5 Chiral said:

Top tier of worst world champions. Not his fault but f*** that was a dire...half year? What a miserable run.

And the absolute assassination of Nakamura in service of Jinder's push...

[Kyle Butler]

I went to a SmackDown in Richmond when Jinder was champion. The dark match main event was Jinder vs. Cena for the title. I was pretty close to the ring and I was cheering Jinder during a down spot in the match. He looked at me and yelled that he didn’t need me cheering him. Good times

[Rican]

It was just weird because they could have made it work. When they brought him back initially they could have started pushing him off the bat and hyping up how he used his time away from the WWE to train and improve. Or like Trent said you could have done the JBL-type reign with fluke wins. But they just turned him from a jobber to someone we were supposed to take seriously overnight.

[Cvslfc123]

They should have given Heath Slater the belt instead, he was 10 times more over than Jinder was.

[4real]

April Fools?.....ah no wait this did actually happen. * Shudders *

[Fade]

It still sounds like a joke.

[Peeetah]

Jinder hindered Jinder.

[Ben Wyatt]

Apr 1, 2020 9:24:14 GMT -5 Rican said:

It was just weird because they could have made it work. When they brought him back initially they could have started pushing him off the bat and hyping up how he used his time away from the WWE to train and improve. Or like Trent said you could have done the JBL-type reign with fluke wins. But they just turned him from a jobber to someone we were supposed to take seriously overnight.

Right. He had the look to be credible, his presentation (the giant ass limo, the sign bros and their intro, the theme etc) was pretty solid, and while not a ring wizard, he's perfectly serviceable in the ring. It's that he went from losing to everyone and their mother, to getting a fluke PPV title match and winning it on the first shot right away

[Deleted]

I actually loved the surprise title win, and it's something I think should be done from time to time. It had me more interested in the product than anything that's happened since.

But they absolutely butchered everything other than his entrance; there's bad writing, then there's whatever the f*** they were trying to do with Jinder. The long winded promos, the same exact finish to every damn match, his first feud with Orton who was completely phoning it in.

Like Ben Wyatt said, it didn't have to be nearly as bad as it was, and it sucks that Jinder takes so much of the blame when the booking was so mind-bogglingly awful at every turn that it felt like sabotage.