10 Ridiculously Ambitious WWE Ideas That Failed Horribly
9. Jinder Mahal: WWE Heavyweight Champion
By now, you're probably sick to the back teeth of reading about Jinder Mahal. You're probably sick to the back teeth of being reminded about being sick to the back teeth of reading about Jinder Mahal - and with Clash of Champions ending the way it did, the take is probably as irrelevant as it is cold.
But good grief: this was absolutely ludicrous business, in how it alienated the established fanbase and abjectly failed to make inroads into a barren "emerging" market. WWE knew this was a shocker of a decision, in every sense of the word - hence why the cameras trained on disbelieving Chicagoans at Backlash - but still proceeded regardless with the knowledge that, with no pay-per-views to flog, Vince McMahon could do as he pleased.
Plodding, repetitive matches; derivative, dated, cheap promos; stretches of limited and non-appearances owing to how boring and irrelevant the WWE Heavyweight Champion was: the Great Localisation Cash Grab was a gigantic failure, ending with a reluctant title loss engineered by the most nightmarish Dream Match tease imaginable, and the profoundly telling and embarrassing reduction of December's tour of India.
The phasing out has begun in earnest - poetic justice at the expense of a man who, mercifully, cannot actually do as he pleases.