WWE released Jinder Mahal last week, and while it will be a good 3 months or so before he can break his silence on that, the Modern Day Maharaja recently spoke to Chris Van Vliet about his online feud with AEW President Tony Khan.
Earlier this year, WWE booked Mahal in a World Heavyweight Championship match against Seth Rollins. It was a little out of the blue, yes, but Khan took it personally and started attacking fans who had taken issue with Hook challenging Samoa Joe for the AEW World Championship.
Fans and wrestlers alike soon jumped to Mahal's defence, with "Don't Hinder Jinder" trending on social media.
Asked for his take on that, the former WWE Champion said, "I was at home. I think it was early in the day. I think I just did cardio. Drew [McIntyre] had texted me. And I got like a bunch of texts in a row I was like what I got to see this. And I opened up to Twitter and that’s what I saw."
"Thank you Tony, you made that match with Seth more interesting," he continued. "Yeah. People thought I was gonna win it just to spite Tony."
Elsewhere in the interview (which was conducted before his release), Mahal reflected on sharing the ring with Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson during the "Day 1" episode of RAW which kicked off 2024.
"I got a text from creative, 'Hey, you guys have nothing this week.' And then actually, travel text says, 'Hey, you guys are not flying out.' I’m in a group chat with Indus Sher and our travel department. And 20 minutes later, I get a separate text saying, ‘Actually, you are going.’ I thought it was a little weird that it was just me and not Indus Sher. But I don’t think anything of it."
"And then like a few hours later, I saw the announcement on Twitter, former WWE Champion returns. I knew it wasn’t going to be me but I figured I’m going to be a part of it. I texted Indus Sher, Hey, are you guys going to Raw? They said no, [so] it’s just me going. So I’m like, okay, good chance I think it’s me."
"One of the writers said, 'Yeah, so we got you in the segment with the Rock.' So that’s how I found out man one or two days before."
"It was amazing. I met him at his hotel. And Brian Gewirtz was there, wrote an awesome promo. When he sent it to me [I said], 'Can we say this?' [Brian said] 'Yeah.' Okay, I guess with The Rock anything goes. So no he just said have fun, let’s do it. He was excited to work with me and I was obviously excited to work with him...it was an awesome experience."
Many WWE fans have questioned how Mahal could go from a segment like that to being released, and we'll likely learn more about that once his 90-day non-compete is up.
After this confrontation with The Rock, Mahal challenged Seth for the title and then vanished from TV again. It seems WWE Creative simply had nothing substantial for the former 3MB member, and it should be interesting to see where he lands next.
Check out the full interview in the player below.