Add as a preferred source on Google Raj Dhesi, known in WWE as Jinder Mahal, said he came close to being fired by Vince McMahon at one of the turning points of his second run with the company.
The comments came on TMZ’s Inside The Ring in an interview first published on August 20, 2025, that has been circulating again in recent weeks. Dhesi looked back on his match with Finn Bálor on the April 10, 2017 episode of Monday Night RAW, when a mistimed forearm left the Irishman with a concussion.
“I gave Finn Balor that concussion. I came back to Gorilla and Vince told me himself, ‘I should fire you.’ Everything could have changed the trajectory of my life.”
The timeline is the part that stands out. Dhesi summed it up by saying he was sent to SmackDown a week later, but the move came the very next night, on April 11. On April 18, he won a Six-Pack Challenge to earn a shot at the WWE Championship.
On May 21, just 41 days after the incident, Mahal beat Randy Orton at Backlash to win the company’s top title for the first time.
Dhesi also said he spent the following week anxious and told Road Dogg he would accept whatever punishment came his way. Bálor was pulled from that weekend’s live events but was back in the ring on the April 17 episode of RAW, beating Curt Hawkins.
Talking about wrestlers who blame the creative team for their lack of opportunities, the former champion tied his own path to the need to take control of your own career.
“We don’t look at ourselves. If we look at ourselves and ask, ‘What can I improve?’, that’s what it is.”
Those comments line up with what Dhesi has said about his first release. He admitted that demand for him on the independent circuit dropped off because he had not reinvented himself, and that he changed his approach shortly before returning to WWE in 2016.