Jinder Mahal has truly turned his professional wrestling career around.

Mahal’s first stint with WWE was from 2010 - 2014 where he was used as a lower card talent or an enhancement talent. To say that one day in the future he would be the face of the sports entertainment company by being the WWE Champion would have been something that no one could have thought about. In his first stint, Mahal had a short-lived alliance with his storyline brother-in-law, The Great Khali.

Mahal was then mostly utilized as enhancement talent and would form 3MB, a trio who had rock star personas, with fellow lower card wrestlers, Heath Slater and Drew McIntyre. After being released from WWE in the summer of 2014, he returned to the promotion two years later. Fans picked up on Mahal improving his body condition.

This led to him receiving a big push by WWE Chairman Vince McMahon. He picked up a win over Randy Orton at Backlash in May 2017 for the WWE Championship, which made him the 50th WWE Champion and the first wrestler of Indian descent to win the title.

As seen on this week’s episode of SmackDown Live in Sioux Falls, SD at the Denny Sanford Premier Center, Shinsuke Nakamura defeated Randy Orton to become the new #1 contender for the WWE Championship. Nakamura will challenge Mahal for the WWE Title at the Hell in a Cell PPV (pay-per-view) event on October 8th, 2017 in Detroit, Michigan at the Little Caesars Arena.

As of right now, Mahal held the WWE Championship for 109 days. By doing the math, on October 8th, Mahal has held the title for 139 days. The likelihood of WWE taking the title off of Mahal before the upcoming pay-per-view event is not great, which means that there are several big WWE stars that he is going to pass on the list of longest (single) WWE Championship reigns of all-time.

Here are the names that Jinder is about to beat at 139 days:

– The Undertaker’s longest reign was 133 days.
– Eddie Guerrero’s longest reign was 133 days.
– Kurt Angle’s longest reign was 126 days.
– The Rock’s longest reign was 119 days.

Some of the legends that Jinder has already passed:

– Chris Jericho’s longest reign was 98 days.
– Ric Flair’s longest reign was 77 days.
– Edge’s longest reign was 76 days.
– Mankind’s longest reign was 26 days.

What are your thoughts on Mahal being WWE Champion and this achievement? Have YOUR say in the comments section below, and the fourth episode of GiveMeSport’s WWE podcast is here!

Check it out via this link: https://soundcloud.com/user-818579649/gms-wwe-podcast-money-in-the-bank-fallout