Ex-WWE Star Debunks Long-Standing Brock Lesnar Claim
A popular Brock Lesnar fan theory isn’t true according to a former WWE star.
At Backlash in 2017, Jinder Mahal shocked the world when he defeated Randy Orton to become WWE Champion. He went on to hold the gold for 170 days, losing out to AJ Styles less than two weeks before Survivor Series, and a clash with Raw’s Universal Champion, Brock Lesnar.
This sparked years’ worth of speculation that Lesnar got Vince McMahon to change creative plans because he didn’t want to work with Mahal. This forced the then-WWE boss into a switch that saw Styles win the title.
However, in a new interview with Chris Van Vliet, Jinder Mahal said that wasn’t quite the case. The star said he doesn’t doubt that Lesnar wanted the match changed, but that was because they were both heels at the time, and the contest would have been “flat.”
“This is just my opinion, and obviously there’s a lot of misinformation on the internet. The headline came out, ‘Brock Lesnar refused to work with Jinder.’ I don’t think he refused. I just think it was he probably pitched for a match with AJ because stylistically, it is a much better match.
Me and Brock are both heels. Who’s gonna put heat on who? It was gonna be a flat match. It would have just been him suplexing me a bunch of times, maybe Singh Bros get involved. But the match he had with AJ was phenomenal, no pun intended.
So yeah, I don’t think it was that he refused to work with me. I just think Brock has some pull and him and Paul Heyman probably said, ‘Hey, we should talk to Vince and said book the match with AJ Styles.’ Which is okay, I have to lose a championship at some point anyway, I had it for six months and I didn’t know that I was losing the championship until the day of.
We were in Manchester and we had the title match. We get to the building. Michael Hayes tells me and AJ go talk to Vince, and send us to Vince’s office. Vince tells us ‘you’re dropping the championship, now you’re going to chase it. AJ, you’re winning it tonight, you’ll work with Brock at Survivor Series, then me and AJ at Night of Champions, one more championship match.’ And that was it. Yeah, I found out on the same day I’m winning it, lost it the same way found out the same day.”
The comments from Mahal back up a 2022 explanation from Road Dogg who was working backstage in WWE at the time. The veteran said that while Lesnar asked McMahon to change the match, it was because he felt he’d have a better match with Styles, rather than having something personal against working with Mahal.
Brock Lesnar Remains Absent From WWE
Brock Lesnar has been absent from WWE for a little under a year, wrestling his most recent match against Cody Rhodes at SummerSlam 2023 on August 5th.
The former World Champion had been scheduled to return at the Royal Rumble, but all creative for the star was dropped.
Back in January, former WWE employee Janel Grant filed a lawsuit against Vince McMahon, John Laurinaitis, and WWE. The lawsuit contained allegations of sexual assault and sex trafficking, and although he wasn’t named directly, Lesnar was also implicated. It was reported that the “former UFC Champion and WWE Superstar” named in the filing was Lesnar.
H/t to ITRWrestling