WWE: Jinder Mahal on His Regrets for Racial WWE Promo in 2017, PCO on Potential WWE Return Appearance, First Ever Draw Result on 7/17 WWE Speed Show

WWE

Jul 18, 2024

Jinder Mahal Comments on His Regrets for His Racial Promo to Shinsuke Nakamura in WWE in 2017

A recent episode of the Insight with Chris Van Vliet podcast featured Raj Dhesi, former Jinder Mahal in WWE, as the guest. One of the topics discussed included Mahal’s thoughts about his regrets over a controversial promo he gave to Shinsuke Nakamura in WWE in 2017 that was received criticisms and backlash over its usage of anti-Japanese stereotypes.

“There was one promo in particular. Recently, I actually just saw Shelton Benjamin tweet that if he could take back one thing in his career, it was a promo with Yoshi Tatsu. Same thing, kind of like a racial promo.
So that day, I had the promo, I got the script from the writer, ‘This is from Vince, he wants you to say this.’ I was like, ‘Oh man, I don’t want to say [this], is there anything else we can do?’ He said, ‘No, it’s come from Vince.’ So I even asked Vince, like, ‘This is gonna get negative backlash. He said, ‘No, no, no, no, don’t worry. Who cares? It’s not you. It’s a character, it’s just entertainment.
Did the promo, was not happy with it, not proud of myself for doing it. Really wish that I could take that moment back, but — unfortunately — I can’t. And right when we came back, it got a lot of negative backlash. Like, I remember coming back from Gorilla [position] — I was still hanging out by Gorilla and one of the social media managers came up to me and said, ‘Hey, this is getting a lot of bad PR and Vince wants you for you to tweet something, like a statement.’ I said, ‘Ok, cool.’ He came up with something, maybe the PR team wrote it, someone — he came up with a statement. And as we were about to tweet it, he said, ‘Actually, Vince changed his mind, he said no.”

Mahal also gave his thoughts about his belief that a promo like the one he gave in 2017 will never happen again under WWE’s new leadership regime.

“It was just one of those things where — it is what it is, not proud of doing it. But on the plus side, I don’t think something like that, a promo like that, will ever happen again in WWE. Things changed, the regime changed, everything is much, much different now. That was a different era, different time. Under Vince, his style was different. And sometimes he was stuck in his ways.”

Transcript h/t: F4WOnline.com

PCO Comments on Potential of WWE Return Appearance as Part of WWE & TNA’s Talent Crossover Partnership

A recent episode of the Straight Talk Wrestling podcast featured TNA Wrestling talent PCO as the guest. One of the topics discussed included PCO’s thoughts about the potential of him making a return appearance in WWE as part of WWE and TNA’s current talent crossover partnership.

“I think the day you see that, I think the roof will go off the building. That would be pretty amazing. Yeah, I’ve got a strong feeling it’s gonna happen. I don’t know, I’ve just always been super close to guessing a little bit. I don’t know all things are gonna happen, I never know how. When I decided to stay with TNA, I was supposed to stay. I had a conversation with Scott [D’Amore] before he got fired. I don’t know, for whatever reason, he convinced me to stay. He had planned for Montreal, and then after the month that it was supposed to be on, it didn’t happen, and then it came back. The way it’s happening now, it’s like I know why I’ve been with TNA for the last three years. Now everything is aligned with this.”

Transcript h/t: Fightful.com

Ilja Dragunov & Carmelo Hayes Eliminated in First Ever Draw for Current WWE Speed Title Contender Tournament

Wednesday’s WWE Speed show on Twitter featured Ilja Dragunov’s match with Carmelo Hayes ending in a time limit draw. The winner of this match had been scheduled to face off against Baron Corbin in WWE’s newest #1 Contender tournament for the WWE Speed Championship.

As a result of the draw, it was announced that both Dragunov and Hayes have been eliminated from the tournament and Corbin was declared the new #1 Contender for the WWE Speed title.

It was also announced that Corbin will be facing off against Andrade for the title on Friday’s WWE Speed show.