10 Fascinating Facts About Famous Wrestling Titles

5. A Major Indictment Of Jinder Mahal's WWE Title Reign

Jinder Mahal Edge
WWE.com

Jinder Mahal's reign as WWE Champion in 2017 truly took the piss out of an audience who, fatigued by the relentless Roman Reigns push, were already seething at the idea that the promotion knew better than the customer.

Jinder wasn't even an appropriately built bore, à la Vladimir Kozlov. At least then, Vince McMahon told the correct story credibly. Nobody gave a sh*t, of course, but he invested a lot of time into theoretically making the public care. Kozlov rampaged through the roster, even the Undertaker, and was the new big bad you could take seriously (if he weren't so punishingly dull).

Mahal in contrast was a jobber, won a match, and then became WWE Champion because WWE, transparently and with zero regard for your investment and intelligence, wanted to crack an emerging market.

The content of the reign was damning. Dull, basic, heat-bereft matches. Race-bait promos. Constant interferences from the Singh Brothers that was never punished with the traditional cage stip (Mahal actually chose the Punjabi Prison gimmick at Battleground himself).

The length was just as much as an indictment; at 170 days, Mahal's WWE title run was in fiction more nominally impressive than Edge (139 combined), Ric Flair (118), and Mankind (36).

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Michael Sidgwick is an editor, writer and podcaster for WhatCulture Wrestling. With over seven years of experience in wrestling analysis, Michael was published in the influential institution that was Power Slam magazine, and specialises in providing insights into All Elite Wrestling - so much so that he wrote a book about the subject. You can order Becoming All Elite: The Rise Of AEW on Amazon. Possessing a deep knowledge also of WWE, WCW, ECW and New Japan Pro Wrestling, Michael’s work has been publicly praised by former AEW World Champions Kenny Omega and MJF, and current Undisputed WWE Champion Cody Rhodes. When he isn’t putting your finger on why things are the way they are in the endlessly fascinating world of professional wrestling, Michael wraps his own around a hand grinder to explore the world of specialty coffee. Follow Michael on X (formerly known as Twitter) @MSidgwick for more!