Jinder Mahal Talks About His Future After Being Released By WWE

Jinder Mahal, who is also famous by his nickname ‘The Maharaja’ was among the seven wrestlers released by the World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) earlier this month.

On April 27, the former WWE champion posted a video where he thanked everyone for the support he received during his stint at WWE and also spoke about what the future held for him. “Thoughts from the past week,” read the post shared by him on social media platform X (formerly Twitter).

“Hey it’s the Maharaja. It’s been an eventful week, to say the least, but it’s all good,” Mahal said. “I wanna first say thank you. Thank you to anyone who reached out, all the love, support, DMs, phone calls, texts, comments. I appreciate all of you guys. I also wanna thank everyone in the locker room, all the guys and girls, everyone working backstage, behind the scenes. Thank you. 12 years, two runs. I got to see and do amazing things, so many dream matches, traveled the world, got to do things that I never thought I’d be able to accomplish, championships, being in a rock band. It’s been an amazing journey.”

“But what’s next? What’s next for the Maharaja? I have been here before. That time, I was a kid. But now, I’m a man. I will only present myself in a way that I want to, I will only do things that I want to, I will only go places that I want do. I still have many goals, many dream matches, many places I wanna go. Where do I make an impact? India, Europe, Japan, Canada, Red Hook section of Brooklyn. Stay tuned. You got about 11 more weeks,” he added.

Mahal made his televised debut in WWE in 2011 during an episode of SmackDown, where he greeted The Great Khali and was seen talking to him in their native language, Punjabi, backstage. He was briefly assigned under the NXT brand in the early 2010s, before returning to SmackDown, where he formed an alliance with Heath Slater and Drew McIntyre, known as 3MB. In 2014, he was released by WWE.

Mahal returned on July 27, 2016, and became a prominent figure on the WWE roster. The best phase of his career would come in 2017 when he defeated Randy Orton for the WWE Championship at Backlash. With this, Mahal became the first wrestler of Indian origin to win the title. He would go on to reign as the WWE champion for 170 days, before being defeated by AJ Styles.