Jinder Mahal says getting released by WWE forced him to take a hard look at himself — and one of the biggest changes he made was dropping alcohol completely.
Raj Dhesi, better known to WWE fans as Jinder Mahal, opened up about rebuilding his career during an appearance on Busted Open. The conversation started with Bully Ray bringing up Mahal’s eventual WWE Championship run and how dramatically different he looked after returning to the company.
Dhesi explained that his time away wasn’t some planned break. WWE had released him, and those two years away gave him a chance to figure out exactly where things had gone wrong.
“Me going away was me getting released. I was released from WWE. I was away for two years. It gave me a chance to reinvent myself and really reflect on myself and realize that I needed to make changes, and I had nobody to blame except for myself.”
Once WWE gave him another shot, Dhesi said he went all-in. He was asking for extra promo opportunities, volunteering for live events and making himself available whenever WWE needed someone to step in.
“So I got that second opportunity, and it was pedal to the metal. Vince saw all the hard work that I was putting in and asking for more, asking for situations where I could cut promos or asking to be on live events. If anybody was injured, stepping in. I was there to do any job, opening match to main event. Luckily, I got that chance as WWE Champion. It came out of nowhere.”
Bully then asked him point-blank what the number one thing was that he knew needed to change after getting fired. Dhesi didn’t hesitate: drinking.
“Drinking. Alcohol has been cut since — it’s been over a decade, not a single drink since. And just dedicating myself to being a professional athlete. We are professional athletes. Just dedicating myself in every which way — training, diet, doing the mental work, manifestation or whatever you want to call it. I’ve read a lot of self-help books. I still do.”
It wasn’t just quitting alcohol or getting into the gym either. Dhesi basically turned his entire life into a scoreboard. Every day, he wrote down his goals, tracked his food, supplements, cardio and stretching, then gave himself either a win or a loss depending on whether he actually did everything he was supposed to do.
“One thing that really worked very well for me was every day I would write down my goals, and I would write down all the meals that I ate, if I took my supplements, if I did my cardio, did my stretching, and on the top of the page for that day, I would write either a W or an L.”
Dhesi admitted putting an “L” on the page bothered him so much that it became extra motivation to keep stacking wins.
“I would put a W if I did everything I was supposed to do and an L if I didn’t. And it would bother me so much to write that L, but I stacked so many W’s in a row that my life was changing right in front of me. It was just further motivation to keep going and work even harder.”
Bully pointed out that Mahal eventually returned looking completely transformed, but Dhesi corrected him on the timeline. He said the finished product fans remember didn’t show up immediately after WWE brought him back. He was still working on himself while spending months largely out of the spotlight.
“That wasn’t actually when I came back. When I came back, I was still in the middle of the transformation. I came back, I got signed, I did a quick promo with Heath Slater where Mick Foley basically brought me back to Raw. Then I did nothing for six more months, just wrestling on Main Event. So I wasn’t really on television. Nobody was seeing me in any prominent position at all. But during this time, I was just working, working, working.”
That work eventually started paying off. Mahal was paired with Rusev, moved into singles opportunities and eventually landed in the WWE Championship picture after Rusev was unable to work the program with Randy Orton. Dhesi said he kept pushing himself behind the scenes, including asking Vince McMahon for more promo time and using live events to improve every night.
Dhesi’s WWE comeback ultimately took him from being released to holding the company’s top championship, but his version of the story starts long before the title. He believes the turnaround began when he accepted responsibility for where his career was, quit drinking and built a routine where getting better became something he tracked every single day.
What do you think about Jinder Mahal’s approach to rebuilding his career after his WWE release? Do you think that level of discipline was the biggest reason he eventually became WWE Champion? Let us know what you think in the comments.
