12 WWE Failures Who Became World Champion
3. Jinder Mahal
There's no way anybody thought the guy on the left above was ever getting close to the WWE Title. In fact, the only way Jinder Mahal was getting near the biggest belt in the land was if somebody like Brock Lesnar or John Cena happened to walk past him in the hallway. They might brush against Mahal and give him a little taste of what it's like to be on top.
By 2017, Jinder unthinkably strutted down hallways with that title over his own shoulders.
There's no point in beating around the bush here. Mahal will always be called one of the worst WWE Champions of all time, but he does deserve a lot of praise for knuckling down and forcing management to see him differently. Jinder levelled up his physique and his mindset after returning in 2016. That went a long way with Vince McMahon, 'cause it showed that his re-hire was taking things seriously.
Previously, Mahal hadn't been. He was lagging behind in terms of overall look and presentation, and his matches as part of the 3MB faction were nothing to get excited about when he was in the ring. WWE let him go in 2014, and not many thought they'd ever see Jinder back on the roster at all let alone carrying around the richest prize going.
Mahal got his stuff together and earned respect behind the scenes. That lined up with WWE trying to expand into India, which meant Jinder beat Randy Orton at Backlash 2017. His title reign was balls, and Lesnar apparently didn't want to work with him at Survivor Series, but he still got to the top of the industry somehow.
Incredible scenes.