Talk is Jericho Recap w/ Jinder Mahal – Becoming Number One Contender, Relationship with Great Khali, Origins of 3MB, More!

Jericho welcomes Jinder Mahal to the show.

Jericho mentions that Mahal appeared to come out of nowhere to become the new number one contender for the WWE Championship. He says he was told the day before winning the 6-pack challenge on Smackdown Live that he was going to become the number one contender. Concerning his run as an enhancement talent prior to this, Vince McMahon told him that WWE’s audience has a short memory and Mahal says, “I guess we’ll all find out about that”.

Mahal says he got pretty down on himself emotionally after being released from WWE a couple of years ago. He was drinking a lot and his weight ballooned to 260 lbs. He realized that he needed to change his lifestyle, so he began dieting and getting into shape, and soon enough WWE came calling. He says that Impact Wrestling actually called him about coming to work for them as well, but he chose to come back to WWE.

He says that during those two years he was very negative and was working the indie scene and just didn’t care. As soon as he started to care about himself and his wrestling again, everything changed and opportunities started to arise again. He says he’s remaining very positive now, and he keeps a daily planner of his goals. One of his goals is to have the best body in WWE, and another is to win the WWE Championship.

Could A Major Swerve Occur At Backlash?

Thanks to the most recent episode of Smackdown Live, my interest in Backlash has reached new highs. Jinder going over AJ (even though he had help) has made me a believer that he really stands a chance against Randy Orton in their WWE Championship match. The Usos dropped one awesome promo on Breezango, and I absolutely loved it despite my ill feelings toward them. Even Erick Rowan showing just what kind of character he can be on Talking Smack has me excited for his match as well.

While all of these matches are intriguing, it’s the women’s tag match that has me intrigued the most. The newest babyface of Smackdown, Charlotte, will team up with Naomi and Becky Lynch to take on The Welcoming Committee of Smackdown Live. It’s weird to see Charlotte as a face, but it’s a nice change on a show where change is welcome. Natalya and company have made it clear that they do not want Charlotte here, and she shouldn’t be allowed a chance at the Smackdown Live Women’s Championship just because of her past accomplishments on Raw. Technically these women have a point, but they shouldn’t be fighting for the belt either so their opinion is invalid.

Something about this doesn’t sit right with me. Charlotte seems like the person who should be a natural heel, for her entire career. This is why I see Charlotte turning on Becky and Naomi at Backlash.

The Ross Report Recap w/ Roderick Strong – Strowman’s Injury, Strong’s Road to WWE, Who is Strong’s Dream Opponent, More!

Ross informs that he’s going to be busy this week commentating NJPW events for AXS TV, and he says he enjoys doing commentary for NJPW because it’s very one-dimentional in the sense that it’s a wrestling-heavy product. He’ll also be flying to Stanford on Wednesday to do voice over work for WWE’s UK Special which will air later this week on the WWE Network

From Ross’ understanding, the UK special will be 90 minutes in length. He says he’s quite excited to do voice over work for that WWE special, but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t appreciate the other commentary work he does for NJPW or any other promotions. He says that whenever he sits down at a commentary booth he gives 100% and does his best to serve the product, regardless of the style of wrestling.

Ross informs that he will be Chicago this weekend for his one-man show, but as of this recording he has no appearance confirmed for WWE’s Backlash PPV or the NXT Takeover show. He says that it’s certainly a possibility that he has a role on one of those shows, and he’d be happy if that were to occur. He adds that he’s just happy to be home in WWE and have a role with the company.

Ross says that his book will be coming out in October, and he has just finished confirming names to do forewords and add dialogue to it. He says he already has some great words submitted from Vince McMahon, Steve Austin, The Rock and Mark Cuban to name a few.