Jinder Mahal’s five months as WWE Champion has seen him defeat the likes of Randy Orton and Shinsuke Nakamura in major championship matches. While every victory hasn’t been clean, he’s still holding the gold as he nears the 150 day mark as the champion. Mahal went on a press tour of India to promote WWE’s live events in India in December where he covered a lot including his desire to face John Cena at WrestleMania.
In the last week, there were reports that Mahal was dealing with a shoulder injury. It was mentioned in the latest Wrestling Observer Newsletter by Dave Meltzer that Mahal “had his shoulder taped up most nights but I guess they don’t want people to see it taped up on television.” That’s why you didn’t see Mahal with tape on his shoulder at Hell in a Cell earlier this month and Mahal was kept off Smackdown last week.
Mahal addressed the supposed injury during an interview with ESPN this week.
“I don’t have an injury. Those are just rumours. I have large traps and that causes my shoulders to roll forward so when I tape them up, it just pulls my shoulders back and I start to develop my rear shoulders more. My traps are a bit too strong so it puts me out of balance. So it is just to prevent future injuries.”
It sounds like a smart move by Mahal as a preventive measure to keep himself healthy. The “large traps” statement is obviously true because if you look at the guy he’s huge and that’s part of the reason why WWE put the title on him earlier this year.
Mahal also talked about how he works at his craft all the time including watching matches of wrestling legends and he has a particular match in mind when talking about the best ever.
“No one sees the 24 hours that I put in. A large part of those 24 hours is putting the work that will make me the best WWE superstar that I can be. That means watching tape. Not just matches of myself but also the great matches including matches of Triple H and just watching the stories that he tells in the ring. I will see The Rock, Stone Cold (Steve Austin) or even watch Bret Hart or Shawn Michaels. Their Ironman match at Wrestlemania XII was the greatest of all time.”
That’s not a bad choice. While it may not be the “greatest of all time” for some fans, a lot of wrestlers talk about it as being their favorite because of how hard it is to put on a great match for one hour. Anyway, Mahal is clearly taking care of himself physically and mentally as his WWE Championship reign continues.
