It was earlier reported that WWE might intend to take away the WWE Championship from Jinder Mahal due to people’s lack of interest towards him. The company basically made him the champion targeting the core fan base of India who is interested in WWE products. With a champion from their native-land on the show, the audience will be bound to stick to the show.
This, in turn, will promote the product more and more on the sub-continent grabbing more WWE Network subscribers in the future. Eyeing the foreseeable future, the company even inaugurated their office in the Mumbai City.
The initial response of the crowd was very good since Jinder defeating Randy Orton was a pure shocker to the world. This helped him to continue with his title run for a longer period. However, the earlier phase has gone by and the tv ratings in India did not indicate any increment creating a headache for the officials.
This was the reason why Jinder Mahal was about to drop the title at the Summerslam PPV against Shinsuke Nakamura. However, Dave Meltzer from Wrestling Observer stated that the Modern Day Maharaja will not lose his title at the event.
According to him, Baron Corbin was slated to become the next WWE Champion by cashing in the Money in the Bank briefcase in the near future. But that was called off since making Corbin champion will not give any additional benefit to the company. Rather, Jinder continuing his run might get a slight help to attract Indian fan base.
Plus, Meltzer also pointed towards the fact that during Jinder Mahal’s title reign, the tv ratings for Smackdown Live did not show a huge dip in the USA region. So, the champion should not face a backstage heat due to that, as well.
Lastly, the feud between Nakamura and Jinder Mahal has not become quite personal, till date so that a title change can do a proper justification to it. Rather, stretching this feud to the fall will help the company, even more since they can conduct an India tour keeping Jinder as the WWE Champion.
With that being said, it is likely that Jinder will walk out as the champion by virtue of some help from the Singh Brothers. Finally, the title change is likely to happen at the next Smackdown-exclusive PPV i.e. Hell in a Cell in October.