A former WWE Champion has spoken about claims that Dave Meltzer once made that Brock Lesnar refused to wrestle them back in 2017.
Speaking about the rumours on a live tour with Inside the Ropes, Raj Dhesi, better known to WWE fans as Jinder Mahal, addressed a rumour that Brock Lesnar refused to work with him back when he was in the WWE Title picture in 2017, stating that was not the case and that he and Lesnar shared a mutual respect. Mahal spoke of his rise to becoming WWE Champion and how the company planned to have him vs. Lesnar take place at the 2017 Survivor Series, with him as the WWE Champion and Lesnar as the Universal Champion in a non-title match.
Mahal said that he was uncertain about the match because he and Lesnar were both heels at the time, and he wasn’t quite sure how a heel vs. heel match would work out. Mahal said that the plan originally was for him to shoot an angle with Lesnar on an episode of Raw, but the plan quickly changed as the company decided that Mahal would drop the title to AJ Styles on the November 7, 2017 episode of SmackDown in Manchester, England.
Mahal said he only found out about the title change on the day it happened, as he had a meeting with Vince McMahon, who told him that he would drop the title to Styles and would go on to feud with Styles and Lesnar, leading to a three-way match at Survivor Series. However, that isn’t what ended up happening, as Lesnar and Styles had a singles match at the pay-per-view instead.
What Were The Rumours About Brock Lesnar Not Wanting To Work With Jinder Mahal In WWE?
A few years after Mahal dropped the WWE Title to Styles, Dave Meltzer reported that the reason Lesnar vs. Mahal never happened because Lesnar refused to work with him. Mahal said of that matter:
“Nobody told me Brock doesn’t want to work with you, etc. In fact, Brock showed me nothing but respect, even to the very end of the time that I was in WWE. If Brock sees me in the locker room, he shows me the utmost respect always, handshake, hug, and I don’t see him treat that like I don’t see him that way with everybody. Me and Brock have a certain respect for each other.”
