For decades Vince McMahon was in charge of running WWE, and back in May of 2017 he decided to crown a new WWE Champion when he booked Jinder Mahal to win the belt.
Recently Jinder Mahal recalled his journey to the WWE Championship on TMZ’s Inside The Ring, and he revealed that Vince McMahon considered firing him a month before he won the title.
“One week before getting drafted to SmackDown, before I became WWE Champion, it was myself and Finn Balor in a singles match on RAW. I accidentally gave him a concussion. He was coming off the ropes, I gave him a forearm, and we would do this spot every night on the live events. As a hope spot, he would come off the ropes, I would give him a forearm. But just mistiming, I gave Finn Balor that concussion. Felt terrible.
When I came into Gorilla, Vince told me himself, ‘I should fire you.’ That would have changed the trajectory of my life because a week later, I went to SmackDown. And a week after that, I was number one contender. And a month after, I was WWE Champion. Everything could have ended had I came back to Gorilla and Vince said, ‘You’re fired.’ It was very possible.”
Luckily things worked out for Jinder Mahal as he went on to hold the WWE Championship for 170 days before dropping the title to AJ Styles in November of 2017. He finished up his run with the company in 2017 when he was released, but still competes on the independent circuit under his real name Raj Dhesi.