1. The Land of Opportunity
Keyfabe wise Smackdown Live presents itself as the land of opportunity and this is what it needs to be for Jinder Mahal right now. Coming off Wrestlemania Mahal is the hottest he's ever been on the main roster, he was the runner up in the Andre the Giant Memorial Battle Royal and has been slowly building up heat on Raw for months.
This is the ideal time to see if he can sink or swim in the main event scene, right now people care about Jinder Mahal. They are talking about him and they've been booing him for months - he gets a reaction so lets see what he can do on the main event scene instead of the mid card scene.
2. Smackdown Live Needs to Build Heels
While the superstar shakeup was fairly even in who went where there's no denying that in the aftermath Smackdown is light on top level heels. The Miz and Bray Wyatt have moved to Raw, AJ Styles has turned face, Dolph Ziggler has sunk to far from the main even scene to be a legitimate top heel and Baron Corbin is still being built up to be a top level heel.
In short Smackdown needs to build some heels immediately, the only other genuine heel is Kevin Owens and he's busy feuding with Chris Jericho right now. Plus storyline wise he could be going back to Raw within the next few weeks. Lets not forget the last time WWE didn't raise someone up and take a risk it resulted in HHH winning last years Royal Rumble and main eventing Wrestlemania, something nobody wants to see again.
3. Rusev is Injured
Even with the best will in the world it is blatantly obvious that this story line and title challenge was originally pitched for Rusev. But as he's injured Jinder Mahal is getting the story line, critics would say there are plenty of people the spot could have gone to and that's correct but its not what we've got. Instead of listing others who could take that spot lets focus on what we have.
We have a heel who can work and hopefully get Randy Orton over more as a face which is just what Orton needs. Right now he's in a muddy feud with Bray Wyatt and when he gets out he needs to get back to being a face against a traditional heel. We have a character in Jinder Mahal, who will no doubt rub his win in the face of others resulting in potential runs against the likes of Sami Zayn - we get so much more with this booking decision than it takes away.
4. Tradition
Over the years in WWE there has been the tradition of new wrestlers come in and being given wild over the top gimmicks to get them over. Examples of wrestlers who got their gimmick over and flourished are Mr Perfect, The Undertaker and Goldust. Wrestlers who haven't gotten their gimmicks over include Max Moon, Adam Rose and Vladimir Kozlov.
Jinder Mahal has flourished in every gimmick he's been given, his initial arrogant heel run got good reactions from Ryback and The Great Khali, the 3 Man Band stable were good comedy fluff and his run in NXT saw him enjoy a series of good matches.
The fact of the matter is Jinder Mahal has put the time in, paid his dues and deserves a title shot. Weather he deserves the elevated spot on the card we can only judge in the future.
5. Wrestlemania is Over
It can't be argued that the peak time of interest in WWE is in the run up to Wrestlemania in the first quarter of the year. Viewing figures are at their height and all the big names WWE has to offer are on show, however Wrestlemania is now over and its time to move on, John Cena and Nikki Bella are gone, Goldberg is gone, Chris Jericho is off touring with his band and Brock Lesnar while being the Raw champ is strictly part time.
Right now the WWE has two options, either move up the second tier talent to the main event scene, talent that has already been over TV for the last four months or to elevate mid card talent to see if they can run with the ball. If Dolph Ziggler or Luke Harper had won the six pack challenge and become the number one contender nobody would be talking about it. With Jinder Mahal winning people are talking about it and its creating a buzz that doesn't often happen at this time of year.
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