Former WWE Champion Returns to WWE TV, Forms New Faction

Before this week’s Monday Night Raw got underway, WWE had a surprise for fans watching the taping of this week’s Main Event. Former WWE Champion Jinder Mahal wrestled for just the second time in a full year during the Main Event taping, beating Jeff Hardy. Mahal won the bout, then posed with NXT tag team wrestler Rinku Singh and Performanc eCenter trainer Dilsher Shanky to indicate he was formingnew stable.

Mahal underwent knee surgery back in June 2019, one that would keep hikm out of action all the way up until the April 27, 2020 episode of Raw. He returned that night with a seemingly new attitude and beat Akira Tozawa, but was pulled from television again to have another surgery on his knee.

He popped up at the Superstar Spectacle event in January for a six-man tag match with The Bollywood Boyz and could be seen on the WrestleMania 37 stage during Vince McMahon’s address to the fans, but has yet to return to the Red Brand.

Though his WWE Championship run was highly criticized, former champ Drew McIntyre believed he and Mahal could have a fun feud over the title given their history in 3MB.

I don’t know if the fans would necessarily accept it right away,” McIntyre told Metro last May. “Jinder and I have that legitimate, real story. He just has to get a bit of a run going, build up some steam and when the time’s right, come together. Aside from what people saw on television, besides the fact he won the title before me and everyone kind of crapped on it, then I won the title and everybody kinda praised it, there’s a lot of backstage stuff we can put on-screen and I know it’ll be fantastic. We just have to do it at the right time.”

Indus Sher — comprised of Rinku Singh and Saurav Gurjar — initially debuted as a tag team for NXT in March 2020 with Malcolm Bivens as their manager. Their last tag televised tag match came last June, where they won a one-minute squash.