Jinder Mahal's Loss to Triple H in India Is Troubling for Future as a Top Star

Saturday night in New Delhi, India, after a surprising loss to Triple H as the conquering hometown hero, Jinder Mahal danced with Triple H and the Singh Brothers. In effect, the former WWE champion seemed to be dancing his way back to the midcard. 

Mahal spent much of 2017 as an unlikely WWE champion, coming out of nowhere to reach unprecedented heights from the bottom of the roster. Mahal's run by no means was perfect, but he did everything he could to help WWE pull off a premature push to the main event and even shined at times.

But after suffering a WWE Championship loss to AJ Styles as part of a behind-the-scenes shake-up, Mahal has been slowly losing his grip on the WWE main event. With Mahal's much-talked-about return to India as the focal point of WWE's ongoing push to increase its presence in the market, winning in a featured spot seemed like a formality for the Modern Day Maharaja. 

Then came Triple H. 

Triple H gets a bad wrap for "burying young talent." Many of these unequivocal complaints are typically extremist, online jibberish that could stand to benefit from perspective.

There does, however, seem to be an unspoken rule in big matches when it comes to Triple H. Triple H is more than willing to lose big matches as long as the loss elevates one of WWE's future top stars. Batista, John Cena, Randy Orton, Seth Rollins and Roman Reigns have all enjoyed pivotal wins over The Game at WrestleMania. Each was a top star on the rise headed into their match against Triple H, and each went on to become entrenched as a WWE main eventer. 

Mahal's loss to Triple H on his home turf suggests he is a top star on the decline. 

Triple H is not new to eyebrow-raising victories in spots where there was a strong case for him losing. 

At WrestleMania 19, Triple H garnered immense heat for racially insensitive remarks toward Booker T, who had signed on with WWE following the death of WCW two years prior. In the end, Triple H was victorious over Booker T in a World Heavyweight Championship match after weeks of insisting that "people like Booker T" don't get to be world champion. 

Triple H went on to defeat fellow peers Brock Lesnar (29) and Sting (31) in subsequent WrestleManias. The legacies of Booker T, Lesnar and Sting remain intact and were hardly damaged by the loss to Triple H. It was all more of an ego thing, which likely played into the backstage political posturing that resulted in a victory for The Game. 

Again, when it comes to losing big matches, Triple H typically does so against future top stars. He lost to Roman Reigns in Abu Dhabi Friday night because Roman Reigns is The Guy. Wins against living legends like Triple H set him up to lead WWE for the next decade. 

But in similar circumstances, Mahal's loss is a glaring sign that WWE no longer views him as a main eventer, so, unfortunately, there was no need for him to defeat Triple H. Not in India. Not anywhere. 

Following his controversial victory, Triple H took to the microphone to praise Jinder Mahal. According to a live report (h/t Raj Giri of Wrestling Inc), Triple H noted "India was in good hands with the Modern Day Maharaja." 

On a more meta level, however, he might as well have been telling the Zayed Sports City Tennis Stadium that its hometown hero was finished. 

Alfred Konuwa is a Featured Columnist and on-air host for Bleacher Report and Forbes. Like him on Facebook.