8 Ups And 6 Downs From Last Night's WWE Raw (Sept 12)

1. Since When Is Peace Heelish?

jinder mahal
WWE.com

So Jinder Mahal, who has barely said two words since returning to Raw several weeks ago, got a chance to talk about how he believes in letting go of his anger and hatred and embrace inner peace… and he’s a heel.

Uggh.

Jinder getting mic time and a chance to develop a character isn’t a bad thing on its own. Getting a win over Jack Swagger to bolster that character isn’t a bad thing on its own. But this promo about trekking the Himalayas to find inner peace while mixing what you have to assume is Hindi with English just confused the fans.

So when Swagger came out and put his hand over his heart, fans chanted, “We the people!” – making this feel like WWE’s simplistic way of telling fans that Mahal was an evil foreigner, so they should boo him… even though he didn’t really do anything villainous.

Maybe this is asking too much from WWE, but it’s 2016. If you’re going to present a heel character, it can’t just be that he’s a different color or religion or speaks a different language. Give fans a tangible reason to boo, not just a jingoistic counterweight in a Real American.

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Contributor

Scott is a former journalist and longtime wrestling fan who was smart enough to abandon WCW during the Monday Night Wars the same time as the Radicalz. He fondly remembers watching WrestleMania III, IV, V and VI and Saturday Night's Main Event, came back to wrestling during the Attitude Era, and has been a consumer of sports entertainment since then. He's written for WhatCulture for more than a decade, establishing the Ups and Downs articles for WWE Raw and WWE PPVs/PLEs and composing pieces on a variety of topics.