Punjab’s Mahal: The Immigrant becomes The Maharaja
PROVIDENCE, RH O DE ISLAND( US ):“You people have nothing to celebrate,” Jinder Mahal shouted into a microphone Tuesday night at the Dunkin’ Donuts Center. The current World Wrestling Entertainment champion was dressed in a black turban and a gray suit with his giant belt slung over his shoulder. He twisted his face into a deep, angry grimace, and continued, “But for my people, today marks Independence Day of the greatest nation on earth: the great nation of India!”
Thousands of fans leapt out of their seats, stuck their thumbs down and roared their disapproval. “SmackDown Live” — one of WWE’s weekly live-televised events had just begun, and J in der Ma hal( real name Yuvraj Singh Dhesi) was using an elaborate celebration of his culture to fire up the crowd. The ring was decorated with a lush rug; abhangra dance team made its way down the ramp; a woman in a purples al war-kameez sang the Indian national anthem.
Dhesi, the first WWE Champion of Indian descent, is a heel (wrestling speak for a villain), so it is his job to turn crowds into booing, angry mobs. As part of his persona, he exhorts the crowd with statements of cultural confrontation: that Americans are too clueless to realise that greatness comes from immigrants (and therefore, himself). The heated rhetoric often sounds like it would be at home on a cable news panel rather than a wrestling ring. And on Sunday, it will arrive on one of WWE’s biggest stages: Summer Slam, one of the sports-entertainment company’ s core pay-per-view events, where Jinder Mahal will fight a rising star named Shinsuke Nakamura.
WWE performers have long relied on patriotism and “us versus them” narratives. In the 1980s, a tag team featuring the Iron Sheik and Nikolai Volkoff waved the flags of Iran and the USSR; int he1990s,SgtSl aught er, a onetime patriot, switched his sympathies to Iraq.
But D he si has been elevated by the company at very specific moment. One of the pillars of President Donald Trump’s campaign platform was to cut down on unauthorised immigration, and his charged language often linked immigration with crime, spurring protests all over the country. This month, Trump unveiled a proposal to cut legal immigration in half.
POLITICS IN IT?
Both D he si and W WE executives deny that his storyline was politically motivated or designed to send subtle messages, even as the company has made a large investment in becoming a global product. Its programming is available now in 180 countries and in 650 million homes, according to a spokesman .“We keep our finger on the pulse of pop culture,” said Paul Levesque, an executive vice-president and a longtime performer, known as Triple H .“But we’ re more worried about entertainment and pop culture than we are about politics and pop culture.”
While the matches are merely performances according to executives and athletes alike, the W WE has become entwined with politics. Linda McMahon, a co-founder of the company, was picked by Trump to lead the Small Business Administration. Trump himself took part in Wrestle Mania in 2007, and int he 1980s, the Trump Plaza in Atlantic City hosted the event twice. He was inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame in 2013. In July, he tweeted an edited video clip of himself at Wrestle Mania punching a figure whose head had been replaced with the CNN logo.
The night before “SmackDown Live ,” D he si was out of character and standing backstage at the MassMutual Center in Springfield, Massachusetts. Shirtless and wearing purple and black span dex tights with a lotus flower on them (a sacred symbol in India), he was using an elastic band to “pump up ”— solo exercises to make his many protruding muscles look more muscular. While he was relaxed, friendly and exceedingly polite, he was also intently focused.
“Earlyon ,I would actually tell Vince McMahon ,‘ Hey, I’ m going to have the keys to the kingdom ,’” Dhesi said hours earlier at the Tower Square Hotel, referring to the chairman of the W WE .“‘ One day, this place is going to be mine.’” he told him.
SUCHA LONG JOURNEY
The journey started in Calgary, Alberta. Dhesi’s parents immigrated to the United States from Punjab, a northern state of India, then settled in Canada. Dhesi, now 31, wasn’ t the first in his family to take up wrestling. His uncle, Gama Singh, performed in the
1980s in Calgary’s Stampede Wrestling. Dhesi grew up idol isin gt he characters of Terry Bo ll ea (Hulk Hogan) and D wayne Johnson( The Rock ). After attending the University of Calgary to study business, he started training, with his parents’ blessing.
Dhesi arrived at the WWE in 2011 and spent three years as mostly enhancement talent or more impolitely: a professional loser. Dhesi said. “I had kind of become complacent, which is the kiss of death in the WWE.”
He was released in 2014, and started dabbling in real estate. He considered buying a Subway franchise, but decided to rededicate himself .“There’ s people that were entering the WWE from football or other sports that are my age, so I realised that if I regained my focus, my drive, there’s no reason I can’t come back to the WWE,” Dhesi said.
The first step was getting into shape. He stopped drinking alcohol, eliminated junk food, and embraced an extreme training regimen. In summer 2016, he got an unexpected call from the WWE: Want to come back?
THAT MOMENT
When he returned, J in der Ma hal was still a jobber — losing often— but in April, his story saw a creative shift: He became a winner. At the time, Dhesi’s gimmick was about practicing peace. But McMahon made a change: He wanted Jinder Mahal to talk about his immigrant roots and an America in decline.
Dhesi, who first visited India when he was 10, was uncomfortable at first but dutifully carried out his boss’ s wishes. At the Wells Fargo Arena in Des Moines he addressed then-champion Randy Or ton .“Randy, you’ re just like all of these people!” Dhesi said, shooting his opponent a piercing glare. “You disrespect me because I look different! You disrespect me because of your arrogance and your lack of tolerance!” He was wearing a turban. And then he spoke Punjabi. The crowd expressed its disapproval.
“The reaction was great; I heard the crowd that day ,” D he si said .“I was elevated to star status just within that one promo .” With more eyes on his giant, rippled physique came speculation that he is using steroids (Dhesi has passed all of his drug tests mandated by the WWE).
Dhesi won the championship at a pay-per-view in May called “Backlash” just weeks later. While it was hard not to notice that his character was leaning into heated immigration rhetoric, “We really are no different than a great book, a great play, a great movie, an opera and even more applicably, a ballet,” said Stephanie McMahon, chief brand officer of the W WE, as well as an occasional performer .“The only difference is that our conflicts are resolved inside a 20-by-20-foot ring.”
However, the W WE has st rug- gledwithits depictions of minorities, where villains like the Jinder Ma hal character have existed for decades. Dhesi said he is willing to push back on writers if he deems something racially insensitive, although he added that hasn’t happened yet.
In Providence, Mohan Srinivasan, who immigrated to the US from India in 1987, came to “SmackDown” with his 20-yearold son, Siddarth Mohan. Lifelong wrestling fans, they have watched Dhesi’s rise with pride. “India is getting exposure in this company that it never got before,” Mohan said.
T-shirts and other merchandise brand Jinder Mahal “The Modern Day Maharaja”, a “king ”. Another nickname :“The New American Dream”.
PUSH INTO INDIA
In the backdrop of his rise is the WWE’s push into India. According to Michelle Wilson, the company’ s chief revenue and marketing officer, the WWE hopes to return to the country for at least one event this year. She also said about 60 million viewers from India watch W WE programming every week. The company launched a new weekly television show ,“W WE Sunday D ham a al ,” that rounds up the best action in Hindi. In April, the company held an audition in Dubai, where more than a quarter of those trying out were from India.
And whether he means to or not, Dhesi’s character is evoking a fraught immigration dynamic. “I’m actually really glad they put the title on him,” said Robert Everson, 27, after the Springfield event. He said he had been attending wrestling events since he was 5. “Jinder Mahal really is a wake-up call. Not only to the fans but to America as well, because when he speaks about how Americans are reacting to the world, it’s truth.”
We keep our finger on the pulse of pop culture... But we’re more worried about entertainment and pop culture than we are about politics and pop culture.
PAUL LEVESQUE, (RING NAME ‘TRIPLE H’), WWE executive VP A CROSSCULTURAL BODY SLAM AS WWE STAR FROM INDIA TURNS UP THE HEAT, ON BHANGRA BEATS