Source: Wrestling Observer Newsletter
According to those in the company, the push of Jinder Mahal has everything to do with a new strategy earmarking India. The strategy is a likely response to Impact’s deal to have a television show in the market produced in India. The push of Mahal and the former Bollywood Boys, Harv & Gurv Sihra, now named The Singh Brothers, Samir & Sunil Singh, started just before WWE announced the hiring of Sheetesh Srivastava as the new Vice President and General Manager of WWE India, indicating going stronger into the market. WWE has more social media followers in India than anywhere else, including the U.S. It’s been noted that most of the social media followers WWE has comes from countries that they don’t make much money in. Srivastava comes from the Walt Disney office in India here he worked in business development for Disney Media Networks overseeing content creation, distribution, marketing and syndication. It’s very clearly a last minute decision since they had done nothing to position him as a non-prelim guy, and then snapped their fingers and made him a main event championship contender. Sometimes this stuff works, although usually it only works with actual new characters and not someone who had been around for years. But you never know what will work on top if it isn’t tried, and the luxury of current WWE is that more than any other promotion, they take no hits if they try and fail. It’s been done before, such as the R-Truth heel turn and move into a main eventer role, which didn’t work and R-Truth wasn’t as low on the totem poll as Mahal, but people didn’t see him as a main eventer and he didn’t last in that position. With Mahal, it’s a different issue as if they are doing it for the Indian market, even if it doesn’t click in the U.S. market, it may still be an effective international strategy. The one thing is, if he is pushed as a headliner, whether it takes in the U.S. or not, he will get over to people in India watching and he is like a million times better than Mahabali Shera or Great Khali, although obviously Khali did have the unique size to make him someone that would get over in a new market.
Another aspect of this is the company holding tryouts in Dubai 4/26 to 4/29. The key is that they are looking at getting anyone with any potential from Khali’s school. That beats Impact to the punch since Impact and Sony Six were planning a television show for India using locals as the top stars, and looking at getting the best students from Khali’s school (Jesus “Ricardo” Rodriguez was the actual trainer but they used Khali’s name since he’s a big celebrity there). The idea is to heavily target the Indian market and the fact Impact got a local TV deal to use local talent meant the process sped up immediately. Names at the tryout are Ha Rman Saini (the champion of Khali’s local promotion), Sukhi Grewal, Giant Wonder, Shanky Singh (billed at 7-feet tall), Dinesh, Panjak (half of the tag team champions), Walid Yari (a bodybuilder), Saurav Gurjas (a kickboxer), James Garrad (a professional strongman from the U.K.), Islam Gongon (a bodybuilder from Egypt), Mo Ismail (a champion bodybuilder from Egypt who was living in Massachusetts who was in the Guinness Book of World Records for having supposed 31 inch arms, and his arms were at the time enormous to a level I’ve never seen before, but he’s dropped a ton of weight since then and he looks like any other bodybuilder now), M Munaf (an MMA fighter), Crimson Cage (who wrestles in Dubai), Fayez Al Emerate (another Dubai wrestler) and female wrestler Davi Kavita (who we wrote about last week).