One of the highlights of Jinder Mahal’s WWE career was getting to share the screen with The Rock during the Day 1 Raw special on January 1, 2024. The company had teased an appearance from a former WWE Champion and swerved fans with the appearance of The Maharaja. As Mahal was cutting a promo berating America, The Great One showed up and took Jinder out with a Rock Bottom.
The former WWE star provided some details of the segment during a recent interview with Denise Salcedo. Jinder Mahal revealed that he received more messages from people after the segment with The Rock than when he won the WWE title:
“Awesome. That’s like a highlight of a lifetime, right? That’s one of those moments that you’ll remember for the rest of your life. But yes, I got to stand across from the ring while Rock chopped it up on the mic, but I chopped it up on the mic right back. I really felt like I held my own and I showed the WWE Universe and WWE management a different side of me, a different promo style, but unfortunately, we couldn’t capitalize on it, but all good. It was a great moment.”
“I got a voice message from The Rock thanking me and he had a great time. So, yeah, all good. More people messaged me after that promo with The Rock than when I won the WWE Championship,”
Jinder Mahal also revealed that he was given very little time to prepare for the segment. He was informed about it only 2 days before, with the script not being shared until the day of the show:
“That was a high-pressure situation, like leading up to that promo, because I found out a couple days prior- not any direction of the promo or not where it’s going. I was just told, ‘Hey, you’re going to go out there, and then Rock’s going to crash.’ That’s it.
“That’s all I was told. And I got the promo the morning of from Brian Gewirtz. He wrote it. That’s when I read it. Like the kind of talking trash about the United States and the way things are here. And I thought, ‘We can’t do this on WWE TV.’”
