Jinder Mahal Beats Shinsuke Nakamura Without Singh Brothers, Retains WWE Title

For the second consecutive pay-per-view, Jinder Mahal defeated Shinsuke Nakamura to retain the WWE Championship, doing so Sunday at Hell in a Cell.

To some extent, Mahal can thank The Singh Brothers for helping him keep the world title even though they didn't factor directly in the result. Nakamura appeared to have the match won after hitting the Kinshasa knee. The referee wasn't in a position to make the three-count immediately, though, as he was dealing with the Singhs on the outside.

Nakamura eventually pinned Mahal, but the champion got his hand on the bottom rope to break up the count.

Nakamura lined up a second Kinshasa. Mahal ducked out of the way and Nakamura hit his knee on the turnbuckle, and that allowed Mahal to hit the Khallas for the win.

Philly.com's Vaughn Johnson was upset to see Nakamura lose to Mahal once again:

ESPN 980's Aaron Oster and Wrestling Inc thought Mahal looked stronger than ever, though, with the victory:

Nakamura fell short in his first attempt to win the WWE title, as The Singh Brothers interfered at SummerSlam, allowing Mahal to hand The King of Strong Style his first singles loss on the WWE main roster.

The Artist defeated John Cena on SmackDown Live to earn that shot, and he had to take on another future Hall of Famer to get a second crack at The Modern Day Maharaja.

Nakamura did battle with Randy Orton in a highly anticipated SmackDown Live main event, and he was once again victorious, setting the stage for a rematch at Hell in a Cell.

Ever since his ascent to the main event scene, Mahal has spoken out against oppression and claimed the WWE Universe dislikes him because of the fact he is Indian.

Mahal played up to that school of thought by mocking Nakamura on the Sept. 12 SmackDown and focusing on the fact he's from Japan.

Though Mahal claimed he was simply outing the WWE Universe as hypocrites, many perceived his Sept. 19 follow-up promo to be racist. All of this added bad blood to his feud with Nakamura and gave Shinsuke even more incentive to lay a beating on him at Hell in a Cell.

Mahal entered Hell in a Cell on an impressive roll with wins over Orton and Nakamura on his resume, but there were significant question marks about his ability to get the job done on his own since The Singh Brothers interfered on his behalf in essentially every big win.

Even so, Mahal is a physical wrestler and arguably one of the strongest Superstars in all of WWE, so he posed a threat to Nakamura regardless of The Singh Brothers.

Conversely, few Superstars in WWE history have experienced as much success as quickly as Nakamura.

In addition to winning the NXT Championship twice and becoming the face of the brand, he debuted on SmackDown after WrestleMania to great fanfare, and he has beaten nearly everyone in his path since then, including Cena and Orton.

Sunday's match contained an interesting dynamic, and despite Nakamura's status as a legitimate star, Mahal once again prevailed, which suggests Nakamura may soon be shuffled out of the WWE title picture.

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