15 Biggest BURIALS Wrestlers Never Recovered From
12. Jinder Mahal (By His Booking)
The 2017 decision to belt up Jinder Mahal remains a line in the sand for many WWE fans.
Taking a big swing on a midcarder is, in theory, always worth a shot. It's a short-term risk but often yields potential long-term rewards, and even if the folly of the choice reveals itself in due course, very little is lost along the way and fans can be assured that a booker will make an ostensibly brave decision if such a thing is needed. The one consideration a company must take into account along the way though is just how many people are calling for the push? It's hard to discern between good and great reactions, harder still to know if great reactions will result in great business, and this gooey middle is often why decision-makers can be so risk-averse.
This has been a polite attempt to explain the thought process behind a push like Mahal's. The simpler answer is that 'The Modern Day Maharaja' was in unbelievable physical shape, and by 2017, Vince McMahon had many questioning his sanity thanks to decisions made with nothing more than disruption on the mind. If there was even a mind in that head at all.
He defeated Randy Orton in May, had one disastrous programme of note with Shinsuke Nakamura, had exactly zero good matches/promos despite the machine getting behind him, and other than when popping for his goons The Singh Brothers taking dangerous bumps, audiences couldn't have cared less.
Paul Heyman said as much during a scathing takedown on the October 23rd edition of Raw. Survivor Series was on the horizon, and a Champion Vs Champion match was on the cards between Mahal and Brock Lesnar. Two-footing the titleholder, Heyman looked down the lens and said "You're not Brock Lesnar's equal, you're not Brock Lesnar's contemporary, you're not Brock Lesnar's counterpart on SmackDown Live, you're not even a worthy pretender to the throne of being WWE Champion".
The words were too close to the bone, too true, and too much for the company itself to take. Mahal lost the belt to AJ Styles a fortnight later, switching up the Survivor Series main event and instantly removing Jinder from ever competing at that level again.