Jinder Mahal Is A Free Agent! WWE Frustrations, Brock Lesnar, Punjabi Prison Match

On no longer being with WWE:

"It feels great. I always have a positive outlook on things, on life. I know the future's bright, I get to explore other avenues, business ideas that I have, other stuff outside of wrestling we can touch on later. But yeah, I'm excited. And obviously wrestling, the independent scene is amazing right now. I got some bookings coming out. My calendar is getting full. So yeah, it's awesome. I had a great time in WWE, had a great run. And I was always smart with my money. I always invested it. So now I have the luxury of doing whatever I want."

On the release:

"So actually, during WrestleMania week, myself and Indus Sher, we talked to TR [talent relations], They were wanting to go back to India, a few months prior Veer had a religious event that he holds, it was a one year anniversary of his father's death. He got told that, no, we were needed for Raw, he can't go back home. Sangha is also from India. He wants to go back home and we were told no, we were needed on Raw. And sure enough we weren't booked, we were just sitting at home. So they were quite frustrated. And also myself, started off the year with The Rock and had the WWE championship match. Then one week later, I'm not in the Royal Rumble. Which was I thought it was very weird. So we talked to TR, we just said, Hey, listen, like, if there's nothing for us, we can go our separate ways. And sure enough, a few months later, we went our separate ways." 

On it being time for the next generation in WWE:

"It was frustrating, but that's okay. Because that's what WWE is, it's time for the next generation. It's time for the Bron Breakker’s and the Carmelo’s, it’s their time, I had my time. And maybe my time will come back. But it's time right now to step away and do other things. And if works out in the future we come back, if not, it's all good. There's plenty of other things to do. Starting off the year strong with The Rock, then the title match, thank you Tony [laughs]. Then WrestleMania week, I'm in a match two segment match with Tozawa on Main Event. So obviously, there's frustrations and but it's all good. Right? I had many years there. I've done everything that I wanted to do. And yeah, it's a young man's game."

On comparing the 2024 release to the first one:

"This one is much different. I am a grown man now. I'll be turning 38 the day after this interview airs. So yeah, it's just I'm at a different point in my life. I'm at peace with it. I've had a great career because at that time when I got released, the best thing I had done at that point was being in 3MB. Now I’ve been a WWE Champion. I've been in WrestleMania, headlined PVVs. I've done everything. I have travelled the world, and I'm in a different place financially. So yeah, a lot has changed." 

On there being a lot of love from the fans when the release was announced:

"Yeah, definitely. I generally get a lot of hate online. But it was one of those rare instances where I got to show my real personality, actually, this happens to me all the time. I meet people and they're like, wow, like you're not what we expect. [They say] you're nice, maybe it's the Canadian in me. Always respectful, polite, and the Jinder Mahal character was the complete opposite of me. Like some guys are the wrestling characters with their personality turned up. Mine not so much. It was something completely different." 

On Drew McIntyre:

"I became WWE Champion before Drew McIntyre, don’t you forget that [laughs]. Drew's the man. What Drew is doing right now is incredible. This is the best version of Drew. Drew's the man. He's like a brother to me and to see him in this position. He just signed a new contract so he'll be there for a few more years. Something about a man like he is incredible. He’s having fun. I just don't think he cares anymore and that's usually when the best comes out. Like CM Punk, he doesn't care about anything and that's why he's the best."

On being told he was no longer a wrestler:

"I always stay ring ready. Actually, while I was managing Indus Sher, when we got drafted to Raw, I was told that I'm no longer a wrestler. I'm just a manager. But I still stayed in shape. [They told you that?] Yeah, becasue I was pitching. Well, the writer told me. I was pitching all kinds of storylines, like six man tags or matches for myself where Indus Sher is managing me and nothing was happening. I asked the writer, I said, What's the deal am I [wrestling]? I also know this because I saw the roster sheet. Male heels, Raw, SmackDown male heels, tag teams, I wasn't listed under male heels. There was the male heel tag teams Indus Sher and I was in brackets. So as a manager role. So I wasn't even listed as active talent. And I asked the writer I said, Hey, was it discussed that I'm not wrestling anymore? He said, Yeah, it was brought up that you just gonna manage Indus Sher. But then I had the match with Seth Rollins. Luckily, I was in shape already, and stayed in shape. Because that could have went that could have went the opposite way where I started eating desserts in catering every week. But I'm always being ready, motivation comes and goes, right? It's very hard to stay super dialed in year round. Generally, if I know something big is coming up, it's a little bit easier. But now that I know that I get to spread my wings. Yeah, it's motivation."

On being in the Royal Rumble:

"No, there wasn't [any plans]. I was asking, again, this was two weeks after the Seth Rollins match. So like a week out, I asked one of the producers who I'm friends with who was doing the Royal Rumble. I said, Hey, am I in the Royal Rumble? He's like, I'm trying to get you in your name has been brought up but as of right now you're not in it. And I actually jokingly said, Hey, diversity. And he's like, actually, someone did get in because of that I was like I don't count? Yeah, I and the day of the Rumble. I brought my gear. I was ready to be in the Rumble. And the list came out and it wasn't in it."  

On WWE not capitalising on the Indian market:

"Yes, especially with Indus Sher. So both of those guys didn't come from pro wrestling. Rinku was a baseball player and Saurav actor and kickboxer. So they're brand new to this, they went to the NXT system, then they go to main roster, which has its own learning curve. From day one, they came back from the first match and I told Triple H put us on the live events, put us on the live events, put us on the live events. Because what they need is experience. They just don't have enough experience or the experience that maybe they were looking for, the experience with long matches, they mainly had shorter squash matches, where everything was kind of laid out. I really wanted for them to experience a live event match where you don't call as much and you just listen to the crowd and you feel it. And I even suggested like, there's two live events, one on Saturday, one on Sunday. I'll tag with one on one night, the other night, I'll tag with the other one, I'll wrestle both nights. But we just never put on live events. I was put on Live Events alone right after that Seth Rollins match for like two weeks. And then that was it. They just never got the experience and you get that from live events. There's no other way you don't really learn much from TV matches, especially a squash match, you do, but not a squash match. If you have a 90-second match, or you're planning everything like A,B,C,D, you don't really get to feed off the crowd or change a match based off of the crowd reaction. You do that on live events. So I think it was a missed opportunity, not putting those guys on live events, because that would have got them to the next level. Right? Like if they want to have a 15-20 minute match with DIY with all these intricate, false finishes and saves and the timing needs to be worked on, time is super important. You get that from live events and if you mess up, it's okay. It's not a live television. Several million people around the world don't see it, so that would have been the place to do it. But all good."

On the 24/7 Championship segment on a golf course:

"We were on live events that week, and I got a text from Adam Pearce. He was the agent on the live event. He texted me, Hey, we gotta go film this thing. So I could have just showed up in regular clothes but I was like, Nah, I gotta do it in gear, It'll be better. gotta commit. Right? I just didn't have any baby oil, though. You look, I don't have any baby oil, or I don't have a pump. So we go to this golf course and luckily, WWE had gotten permission already from this golf course so it wasn't that awkward. It still was but yeah, showed up in trunks. We did the thing and actually, I didn't warm up or anything and I threw out my back, like really bad. Later that night, we have to live event. But luckily, a few hours later, Adam Pearce actually texted me and I think he was kind of giving me the heads up like hey, sorry, it's written on the show is going to be ding ding ding and Alistair Black just gonna give you his kick. And I just texted God bless. I just said God bless. And then when I got to the building, I came like limping in and he said, Oh my God, what happened? [I said] I threw out my back on the golf course. I'm like Yes, please, this is a great finish is a great match. Walked to the ring, barely just got kicked. 123. So yeah, it worked out."

On the Punjabi Prison match:

"So first off, the Punjabi prison match sucks. It's terrible. [In what way?] It's so hard. The inside cage is the blue old school cage. You can hit it as hard as possible and it won't even make a noise. It was terrible. And then just the crowd reaction they couldn't really see the people in the arena, there's two cages so when we're on the inside, there's two cages they couldn't really see. And it was just painful. Kendo sticks, chair shots, everything. But then The Great Khali. So actually funny story. So I knew Khali was going to come. Singh Bros knew, Randy knew, nobody else knew supposed to be a big secret supposed to be a big secret. They have the Punjabi Prison tarped off and all the way from the roof. Kick everybody out of the bowl, no security guard like no one's in there. But they gotta get Khali ringside to rehearse. So they like wheel them in on basically like a buggy between crash pads, what are you guys doing? They tried their best to hide him. But everybody saw him. Khali saved my championship I won, at the end he raised the championship like he won it. So it was good yeah, it was amazing and actually Khali’s hand is so big like he's patting me on the back but it feels like someone's slapping me, he's like yeah good job, good job, slapping my back. I'm gonna block it with my elbow. Last thing I want right now."

On a scrapped Punjabi Prison match:

"Actually, I was supposed to possibly have one with Roman Reigns at Extreme Rules. I think we just had a regular straight-up match and it was in Chicago, too. There was talk of the Punjabi Prison match coming back. Me and Roman in the Punjabi prison. [And then did he just say I don't think so?] Yeah, just like Brock [laughs]."

On the scrapped match against Brock Lesnar:

"This is just my opinion, and, obviously there's a lot of misinformation on the internet. The headline came out, ‘Brock Lesnar refused to work with Jinder.’ I don't think he refused. I just think it was he probably pitched for a match with AJ because stylistically, it is a much better match. Me and Brock are both heels. Who's gonna put heat on who? It was gonna be a flat match. It would have just been him suplexing me a bunch of times, maybe Singh Bros get involved. But the match he had with AJ was phenomenal, no pun intended. So yeah, I don't think it was that he refused to work with me. I just think Brock has some pull and him and Paul Heyman probably said, Hey, we should talk to Vince and said book the match with AJ Styles. Which is okay, I have to lose a championship at some point anyway, I had it for six months and I didn't know that I was losing the championship until the day of. We were in Manchester and we have the title match. We get to the building. Michael Hayes tells me and AJ go talk to Vince, and send us to Vince's office, Vince tells me you're dropping the championship, now you're going to chase it. AJ, you're winning it tonight, you'll work with Brock at Survivor Series, then me and AJ at Night of Champions, one more championship match. And that was it. Yeah, I found out on the same day I'm winning it, lost it the same way found out the same day."

On the offensive Shinsuke Nakamura promo:

"There was one promo in particular. Recently, I actually just saw Shelton Benjamin tweet that if he could take back one thing in his career, it was a promo with Yoshi Tatsu. Same thing, kind of like a racial promo. So that day, I had the promo, I got the script from the writer 'This is from Vince, he wants you to say this.' I was like, Oh man, I don't want to say [this], is there anything else we can do? He said, No, it’s come from Vince. So I even asked Vince, this is gonna get negative backlash. He said no, no, no, no, don't worry. Who cares? It's not you. It's a character, just entertainment. So did the promo, was not happy with it and not proud of myself for doing it. I really wish that I could take that moment back but unfortunately, I can't. And right when we came back and got a lot of negative backlash, like I remember coming back from Gorilla. I was still hanging out by Gorilla and one of the social media managers came up to me and said, Hey, this is getting a lot of bad PR and Vince wants you to tweet something, like a statement. I said, okay, cool. He came up with something, maybe the PR team wrote it, someone came up with a statement. And as we were about to tweet it, he said, Actually, Vince changed his mind he said No. So it was just one of those things where it is what it is, not proud of doing it. But on the plus side I don't think something like that, a promo like that will ever happen again in WWE. Things changed, the regime changed, everything is much much different now. That was a different era, different time. Under Vince his style was different. Sometimes he was stuck in his ways."

On the lines being blurred

"You separate the performer from the on-screen character, but for some reason in wrestling, and WWE, it doesn't happen. That was the explanation that was given to me, I was like fine we'll do it. I had asked can we do something else? Is there anything else we can do? I was told no, this is what Vince wrote and you can either do it or you take your ball and go home."

Could you say no?

"I had asked can we do something else? Is there anything else we can do? I was told no, this is what Vince wrote and you can either do it or you take your ball and go home."

What is Jinder Mahal grateful for?

“The future, the past for all the lessons and family."