10 Biggest Winners Of The 2016 WWE Draft (One Year Later)

by John Bills

1. Jinder Mahal

jinder mahal
WWE.com

What is there left to say about Jinder Mahal? This time last year, Mahal was a prime candidate to feature in a video titled '10 PG Era Superstars You Totally Don't Remember'. Mahal was the former third most important member of an entirely irrelevant three man group, and an ethnic stereotype of a character with little in the way of upside and seemingly no body of work on the indies to fall back on.

Jinder Mahal has gone from being a completely forgotten man to WWE Champion. From the moment Mahal returned, he was clearly designated as an enhancement talent, doing jobber duties for opponents as illustrious as Curtis Axel, Darren Young, and Sin Cara.

Jinder Mahal as WWE Champion is one of the most unbelievable happenings in the modern history of WWE. I would wager that Mahal has a lower win percentage than any WWE Champion in history. Before the 2016 WWE Draft, Mahal was entirely irrelevant. To some he may well still be irrelevant, but his place in history is assured.

Without the 2016 WWE Draft, Jinder Mahal more than likely would not have returned to WWE, let alone win the WWE Championship. It is fairly clear that the Modern Day Maharaja is the biggest winner of last year's draft.

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Contributor

Born in the middle of Wales in the middle of the 1980's, John can't quite remember when he started watching wrestling but he has a terrible feeling that Dino Bravo was involved. Now living in Prague, John spends most of his time trying to work out how Tomohiro Ishii still stands upright. His favourite wrestler of all time is Dean Malenko, but really it is Repo Man. He is the author of 'An Illustrated History of Slavic Misery', the best book about the Slavic people that you haven't yet read. You can get that and others from www.poshlostbooks.com.