{"id":788458,"date":"2026-07-08T15:19:15","date_gmt":"2026-07-08T15:19:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/788458\/"},"modified":"2026-07-08T15:19:15","modified_gmt":"2026-07-08T15:19:15","slug":"former-wwe-star-reveals-vince-mcmahon-threatened-to-fire-him-before-major-championship-reign","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/788458\/","title":{"rendered":"Former WWE star reveals Vince McMahon threatened to fire him before major championship reign\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"

Jinder Mahal recalled an incident from 2017 when Vince McMahon almost fired him for a botch during a match.<\/p>\n

Speaking with TMZ\u2019s Inside the Ring<\/a>, Mahal revisited a match with Finn Balor on an edition of Raw in 2017. During which he got concussed in a botched move. Things intensified when McMahon threatened to fire him for the incident. However, Mahal was drafted to SmackDown and won the WWE Championship shortly after.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cSo, actually, it was one week before getting drafted to SmackDown, before I became WWE Champion. It was myself and Finn Balor in a singles match on Raw, and I accidentally gave him a concussion. He was coming off the ropes, I gave him a forearm. We would do this spot every night on the live events as a hope spot. He would come off the ropes, I would give him a forearm, but it was just mistiming and wrestling is a game of millimeters. If you\u2019re a millimeter off you could end your career. You could have a broken neck or anything can happen. A serious injury. I gave Finn Balor that concussion.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cFelt terrible. When I came into Gorilla, Vince told me him, said himself like, \u2018I should fire you.\u2019 That would again change the trajectory of my life because a week later I went to Smackdown and a week after that I was number one contender and a month after I was WWE Champion. Everything could have ended had I come back to Gorilla and Vince said \u2018you\u2019re fired.\u2019 Like it was very possible.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd I remember I came to TV the next week and Road Dogg, I had got drafted to Smackdown and I had told Road Dogg that \u2018Hey Dogg, if I\u2019m in the doghouse and I got to learn to eat, you know what? I\u2019m going to learn to love it. It\u2019s all good.\u2019 I was just willing to whatever the punishment was, I was going to ride it out.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mahal\u2019s final WWE appearance was in the first half of 2024. Since then he has been active on social media sharing advice<\/a> with wrestlers on financial security and overall well-being.\u00a0<\/p>\n


\n \"Google
\n <\/a><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\"Rosanne<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

Rosanne Raphael<\/p>\n

Rosanne Raphael is a wrestling writer with over three and a half years of experience covering all things related to the industry. From a kindergarten teacher to PR Associate to turning her lifelong passion for the industry into a career, Rosanne is currently writing for F4W Online where she focuses on wrestling news, analysis, and storytelling. <\/p>\n

Rosanne previously contributed to Sportskeeda as an Assistant Content Manager.<\/p>\n

When not consumed by wrestling, Rosanne is a musician and an aspiring artist.<\/p>\n

previous story<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Jinder Mahal recalled an incident from 2017 when Vince McMahon almost fired him for a botch during a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":788459,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[49,48,75],"class_list":["post-788458","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-entertainment"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/788458","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=788458"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/788458\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/788459"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=788458"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=788458"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=788458"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}