Jinder Mahal worked for years on lower card, got fired and was rehired before WWE finally decided to push him and made him the WWE Champion last year but his struggles started long before that.

Mahal was recently the guest on Lilian Garcia’s Chasing Glory podcast where he talked about how he tried not to get too excited when he found out about winning the WWE Championship as plans tend to change very often.

Reflecting on his early days in wrestling Mahal recalled how he had to drive hours to wrestle in front of very small crowds when he was still in high school:

“When I started wrestling I was still in high school. I would wrestle with guys that were 30 years old, we would drive like 20 hours to a show. I’m still in High School at this time.. I wrestled Tyler Breeze one time when there was like 20 people at the show."

Continuing on the topic, the Morden Day Maharaja said that he drove for hours to get paid $10 on wrestling shows and claimed that he wasn’t just made in the development somewhere:

"I’ve wrestled around five people, drove hours and hours and got paid $10. I often don’t share that side, but for years I was training, traveling, struggling. I wasn’t just made in the Development somewhere.”

Apart from this, Jinder Mahal also talked about how Road Dogg had told him good things would be happening to him before he was moved to SmackDown Live and won the WWE Championship and more. You can check out his full interview in the video below: