During the latest “Wrestling Outlaws” podcast with Chris Featherstone and Vince Russo, Road Dogg commented on Brock Lesnar refusing to work with Jinder Mahal in 2017. At that time, WWE was pushing Mahal as a main eventer in an attempt to create a star for the India market.
At the time, the plan was for Lesnar to face Mahal at Survivor Series in a non-title champion vs. champion match. Road Dogg said that the match was switched to Lesnar vs. Styles because Lesnar refused to work with Mahal.
Road Dogg explained why Mahal vs. Lesnar didn’t happen: “Brock said, ‘I’m not working with him.’ Look, he said that about several people, by the way.”
Road Dogg then said the following when Russo asked if he thought that Mahal was capable of working with Lesnar: “I don’t think so. Brock’s on another level. And so if you get somebody else that’s on, like, I don’t know that he’s on another level in a way where he could carry a Jinder Mahal title match and make it look competitive. I don’t know that he’s on that level. But yeah, I don’t think Jinder could do it. You call it an experiment, Chris. And I honestly think it was a summer experiment. And when Brock came back and said, ‘Okay, what are we going to do?’ We’ll do whatever we want to until Brock comes back, and then we’ll get the title on somebody to work with and we’ll have a main event match.”
Road Dogg on what Jinder was missing to be in a match with Lesnar: “Look, I don’t think just like I think the fans kind of viewed it, it wasn’t a great creative decision. I fought it as hard as I could. But that was the decision that was made. He was going to be champion. Now look to Vince’s point, we dressed him up and put those Bollywood Boys with him and we did everything we could do and looked beautiful on television. It didn’t have any substance, you know.”
Road Dogg was asked if Vince made the call to put the WWE Title on Mahal because of the India market: “Look, that’s what I assumed. I know what happens when you assume but that’s what I assumed and I don’t think that’s a bad idea. You know what I mean? What if it took off? What if it did something at the biggest market on the globe? You know what I mean? Like it’s not a bad roll of the dice because ratings were still pretty decent during it all because we did have other great stuff underneath.”
Road Dogg added that replacing Jinder Mahal with AJ Styles was a cool moment.
Road Doog Reveals Brock Lesnar Stopped The “Jinder Mahal Experiment”
