10 Worst Wrestling World Title Reigns Ever
2. Jinder Mahal - May 21, 2017 To November 7, 2017
There's a scene in the 1991 movie 'Whore', enjoyed by absurdist YouTube algorithms so you've likely seen it, in which the john tells the protagonist that he wants to "f*ck her up the ass".
She says "Why don't you stick it up your own, a**hole".
He then says "I would if I could...bitch."
It's an inadvertently funny line because you can't physically do that - the stiffness rather gets in the way of bending it in that direction - only, WWE did, somehow conspiring to ruin decades' worth of prestige by strapping up Jinder Mahal in 2017. A wrestling championship can only function effectively as the core reason any of this exists if it is promoted as the very pinnacle of achievement. Jinder's reign was such transparent f*ckery that it marked a shift.
Viewers didn't stop watching en masse - there was, if anything, a mild and perverse intrigue surrounding the development - but this brought into focus how little everything mattered beyond Vince McMahon's increasingly disconnected outlook. WWE's reputation appears at this point to be irreparable. Jinder's reign - heavy on rematches, unchecked cheating, tedious work, desperate racism - had much to do with the unrelenting waves of nihilism that meet most everything WWE does now.
WWE said the loud part quiet and the quiet part loud, with this bare-faced corporate strategy masquerading as a fictional development.
What's worse is that they had no shame.