Raj Dhesi, formerly known as Jinder Mahal, has addressed the pressure of reigning as WWE Champion back in 2017.
He won the WWE Championship from Randy Orton at Backlash 2017, holding the title from May 21 to November 7 that year when he lost it to AJ Styles. In a new interview with Click And Tell, Dhesi reflected on the pressures that came with being top champion for the first time in his career.
“The thing with becoming WWE Champion or World Champion, your life is never the same. You’re defined as WWE Champion or World Champion forever. At least in the world of wrestling, in the zeitgeist of WWE,” Dhesi explained.
“The pressure’s very real. The next morning it kicked in, like, ‘Oh my god.’ Because that day I had to wrestle, and the next day, and the next day. And now you’re in the main events and you’re faced with a lot of criticism when you’re in a top spot, you can’t let that get to you.” He continued, “You have to main event pay-per-views, do media, interviews all the time, now you’re traveling with the title, representing – you’re basically the face of the brand.”
“So it’s a lot of pressure, but I was ready for that moment. I was committed. That’s why after I won the title, there was no celebration. I needed to sleep. I can’t change anything,” he said. “Whatever got me to this spot, in the last 10 months that I’d been doing, if anything I’ve gotta even push further and do even more. Really focus on the things that I had been neglecting or kinda been lazy to do. Things become a routine, and when it’s a routine, it’s a habit – you don’t have to think about it. I just had to stay focused.”
Dhesi noted the difficulty of avoiding distractions. “The hardest thing is staying focused, keeping the distractions… because of course everybody’s your friend, everybody wants to hang out, everybody wants to do this, you’re invited to this and that, but you’ve gotta narrow it down and look at things in a way of, ‘Is this thing gonna help me, or is this thing gonna hurt me? Is this thing gonna get me to my goal, or take me away from my goal?’ So I think that’s the hard part.”
Dhesi was released by WWE in April 2024 and has since been wrestling on the independent circuit under his real name. He has remained active in 2025, working for promotions such as Maple Leaf Pro Wrestling. On a personal note, Dhesi married his long-time girlfriend, Priya, on June 28, 2025.