Vince McMahon Allegedly Forced Ex-WWE Star to Cut Controversial Promo Despite Objections

Jinder Mahal had been part of the WWE family for several years in his two tenures with the company but was released earlier this year. During his time in the company, he had to deal with Vince McMahon’s creative direction and this included him being racist towards Shinsuke Nakamura.

In 2017, Jinder Mahal’s career skyrocketed when he defeated Randy Orton to become the WWE Champion. He successfully defended his title against Orton in two rematches, including a brutal Punjabi Prison match. Mahal’s next opponent was Shinsuke Nakamura, who had recently been promoted to the main roster.

Before their SummerSlam showdown, Mahal delivered a promo targeting Shinsuke Nakamura’s ethnicity, which sparked considerable backlash from fans due to its racial insensitivity.

While speaking with Chris Van Vliet, Jinder Mahal talked about his opposition to the content of a particular promo and how he expressed his concerns to Vince McMahon. Mahal recounted receiving a script from a writer, indicating that Vince wanted him to deliver a racially charged promo. He was uncomfortable with it and asked if there were alternatives, but was told there were none as it came directly from Vince McMahon.

Mahal voiced his concerns to Vince, warning about potential negative backlash. Vince dismissed his worries, stating that it was just a character and entertainment. Despite his discomfort, Mahal delivered the promo but later expressed regret and wished he could take it back.

“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 [and said] ‘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, just entertainment.’ So did the promo, was not happy with it and not proud of myself for doing it. I really wish that I could take that moment back but unfortunately, I can’t.”

Mahal recalled that immediately after the promo, there was significant negative backlash. A social media manager informed him that Vince wanted him to issue a public apology. A statement was drafted, but just as they were about to release it, Vince changed his mind and decided against it.

Reflecting on the incident, Mahal mentioned that he wasn’t proud of it but acknowledged that times have changed. He believes such a promo wouldn’t happen in today’s WWE, noting the differences in management and style between Vince’s era and the current regime.

“Right when we came back it got a lot of negative backlash, like I remember coming back from Gorilla. 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 to tweet something, like a statement.’ I said, ‘Okay, cool.’ He came up with something, maybe the PR team wrote it, someone came up with a statement. And as we were about to tweet it, he said ‘Actually, Vince changed his mind, he said no.’

So 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. Sometimes he was stuck in his ways.

That was the explanation that was given to me, I was like fine we’ll do it. I had asked can we do something else? Is there anything else we can do? I was told no, this is what Vince wrote and you can either do it or you take your ball and go home.”

Jinder Mahal is more focused on his post-WWE career at the moment, but he did take time to address a rumor that Brock Lesnar didn’t want to work with him. Regardless, Mahal has moved on from his time with Vince McMahon and that’s all that matters.

Do you believe Vince McMahon intentionally let a lot of racially insensitive promos take place in WWE? Let us know in the comments section below!