Grading Jinder Mahal's Tenure as WWE Champion After the 1st Month

Fans have now had over a month to absorb the stunning reality that Jinder Mahal is, in fact, WWE champion.

The Maharaja completed his jobber-to-titleholder journey by defeating Randy Orton at the Backlash pay-per-view on May 21. He has since been strutting around SmackDown with the WWE title raised high in the air, his muscles bulging, his persecution-complex rhetoric filling the airwaves.

How has Mahal fared in the ring and with a mic in hand? What kind of reign has he produced thus far?

The answers are changing as time progresses. More and more, Mahal is finding his footing as SmackDown's No. 1 heel. He hasn't yet proven himself to be elite, but he is beginning to blossom.

The enraged, entitled monarch of the mat has begun to look like a champion.

His general presence is befitting of that role. His interviews, though, remain of the middle-of-the-road variety.

Promos (C)

As a talker right now, Mahal is passable.

He has been a standard "angry foreign heel." There's ample aggression in his voice, but there hasn't been a spark to his rants. The disdain for America is there, as is a beaming pride, but the charisma isn't. 

After the May 30 SmackDown, John Canton wrote in The John Report: "Mahal's promo was robotic and basic like usual for him."

Mahal recites his lines well enough. There just isn't much oomph behind them.

Were WWE to give this same spot and script to someone with Kevin Owens' level of mic skills, they would be resonating on a much deeper level. 

This is where Mahal is most underwhelming. He's the lifetime role player asked to carry the team and just hasn't shown he can do that yet from a verbal standpoint.

Matches (B-)

Mahal works a methodical style, grinding his opponents into the mat. You won't see anything breathtaking in his bouts. 

When he and Orton collided at Money in the Bank, it was fitting that Orton's father, Ric Flair and other Hall of Famers from years past sat at ringside. As Kelly Harrass of Voices of Wrestling wrote, "This match felt like a throwback to a match from the era of the legends that were sitting in the front row."

While Mahal's approach isn't universally appealing, he has executed it well. 

His viciousness feels genuine. He pounces on his foes' weak points in true heel fashion.

The Money in the Bank clash with Orton ended up being quite entertaining. Some of that is the result of all the bells and whistles WWE used throughout, though. The use of Bob Orton added depth to the action. The Viper wrecking The Singh Brothers is always fun.

When Mahal doesn't have those kinds of extras around him, his matches aren't nearly as memorable. He's had two okay TV matches as champ, one against Luke Harper, the other opposite Mojo Rawley. 

Mahal will never be the second coming of Shawn Michaels, but he plays his part well and has come through with solid fare when the lights are their brightest. Should he work against John Cena in the coming months, that will be quite the measuring stick of where he is as an in-ring performer.

Overall (B-)

The early part of Mahal's time as WWE champ hasn't been as red-hot as AJ Styles' tenure. It has been far more intriguing than when Dean Ambrose held the strap last year, however.

The rushed rise to the top tier has meant Mahal has had to adjust in a hurry.

He's beginning to make it all work, though, and growing into his throne. Sporting News columnist Brian Fritz is among those impressed with Mahal's progress:

WWE can do Mahal a huge favor by adjusting his character and rounding out his act.

More focus on his villainous ways and less on his ethnicity will add to his appeal. He should be an aristocrat who looks down on the peons in the stands, a man willing to break every rule imaginable to keep the title in his grasp. And developing The Singh Brothers' story in any way would allow them to be more than cardboard sidekicks.  

Even with those changes, though, Mahal will still have detractors to win over. He's fully aware of that.

Mahal told Abhimanyu Mathur of The Times of India: "The viewers and the fans hesitate to see me as a main-event guy. That is a challenge, my biggest challenge. Right now, my goal is to change people's perception and make them believe that I belong here, and that I deserve to be the champion."

Opportunities to make that change are coming.

The champion will get his next big chance to impress at the Battleground PPV on July 23 where he will face Orton in a Punjabi Prison match. If he can churn out a strong match even with that convoluted gimmick weighing him down, he'll get all kinds of praise.

A showdown with Cena likely looms. More battles with SmackDown's finest talents are on their way, too.

The big at-bats are coming and Mahal will have to prove he can hit home runs to make this experiment a success.