WWE’s Problems Can Be Traced Back To This EXACT Moment
Mahal and the Singh Brothers continued to torment Orton ahead of their pay-per-view showdown, the buyrate of which, in an alternate universe in which the Network never happened, would have surely bombed.
On May 21, 2017, WWE changed forever.
In the main event of Backlash, Mahal defeated Randy Orton in a match that was competently worked but driven, largely, by a weird atmosphere of incredulity and anxiety. The fandom barely had time to dread it; Mahal was suddenly, inexplicably, the WWE Champion. The camera captured various reactions of shock and vague disgust. WWE sought a meta heat, but received only apathy.
As WWE Champion, Mahal wrestled matches that ranged from passable to damaging to disastrous. He cut wildly unimaginative, racist promos at the expense of Shinsuke Nakamura who, incidentally, was now emblematic of the broken NXT promotion system. Mahal’s reign essentially brought an end to fan-casting; those fans now are more likely to mock up memes than Photoshopped match graphics.
Jinder Mahal winning the WWE Heavyweight Championship broke everything, not least of which the title itself. It means significantly less now than it did before May 21, 2017. It isn’t over as a drawing attraction.
Bret Hart and Shawn Michaels destroyed their personal lives in pursuit of this title. Steve Austin willed himself onto his feet, when f*cking paralysed, because he was one step away from it. 20 years later, it was handed to Jinder Mahal because he was a muscled talent of Indian heritage. WWE, in the Era of the Maharaja, became a totally nonsensical, artless pursuit of money. It always, perhaps, but Vince McMahon was never so brazen with it. Jinder was handed the title under the thinnest, most illogical pretext to monetise an emerging market. WWE made the sausage, right in front of our eyes, and used raw, tainted meat.
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