Jinder Mahal Has a Shot to Prove the Haters Wrong vs. AJ Styles on WWE SmackDown

The announcement of Jinder Mahal's WWE Championship defense against AJ Styles on the November 7 episode of SmackDown Live has some fans drooling over the idea that the company may make a drastic change to the Survivor Series card and put the coveted title on The Phenomenal One.

While that may happen, what Tuesday's match represents is an opportunity for Mahal to prove his worth as WWE champion just weeks before the most significant match of his young career and establish himself as the top heel the company is waiting for him to grow into.

A Defining Match

Some five months after he captured the WWE Championship in stunning fashion over Randy Orton, The Maharaja has yet to cash in on his opportunity with that one definitive match that proves he deserves the spot he is in.

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Subsequent rematches against Orton were solid, though unspectacular, and his series with Shinsuke Nakamura was among the most puzzling and poorly booked feuds of the entire year.

None of those matches demonstrated to fans that Mahal has what it takes to be a credible main event star, capable of ending the show with a bang when it is most needed. They have either been too one-dimensional, as was the case with his first title defense with Orton, or bogged down in the absurd, as fans in Philadelphia witnessed at Battleground in the form of the monstrosity known as The Punjabi Prison.

Worse yet, the matches themselves have been so poorly booked, as the Nakamura series can attest to, that it is hard for fans to emotionally invest in anything Mahal has been involved in.

The match with Styles will solve that problem.

Fans genuinely care about Styles, and as his cheating heel of an opponent, Mahal is the perfect foil. That The Phenomenal One is one of the best wrestlers on the planet only helps Mahal's cause.

Whereas Orton is a traditional worker lacking flash, and Nakamura is a unique performer whose style does not necessarily mesh as well with that incorporated by WWE, Styles has proved he has an innate ability to have a great match with Superstars of all styles.

Working with and learning from Styles will benefit him in the long run, but a match with his new No. 1 contender will greatly benefit him in the immediate future. The Tuesday match has the potential to reaffirm Mahal's place atop the brand.

Even if Styles is responsible for the overall quality of the match, the previously nonexistent momentum Mahal will be able to build for himself will benefit him more than if he rolled into Survivor Series for a match with Lesnar without that match under his proverbial belt.

Momentum

We have seen in the past several fresh faces to WWE's main event scene use one extraordinary match to cement their credibility in that role.

A young John Cena's championship victory over John Bradshaw Layfield at WrestleMania 21 was a major disappointment. The match failed to leave an impression and immediately called into question whether the company went all-in on the right Superstar.

Two months later, a brutal and bloody I Quit match against his rival proved Cena could and would deliver as a main event Superstar.

Triple H needed his series of matches with Cactus Jack in 2000 to ease concerns that he could not thrive at the top of the card. Ditto Brock Lesnar, whose Hell in a Cell match at No Mercy 2002 erased all questions that he could deliver in the prime spot on the card as the top star on the roster.

Even Shawn Michaels needed two brutal, violent matches with Diesel and Mankind, respectively, to convince fans he would be a different champion than the pretty boy he portrayed for years before his WWE title victory.

It is far too early to compare Mahal to any of those Superstars, all of whom are Hall of Fame talents.

Mahal can replicate their success, though, building on the momentum a great match with Styles would bring to continue evolving as a performer and delivering subsequent strong performances.