Jinder Mahal is the Modern Day Maharaja but when he first started training he had a coach many might recognize better if he was dressed like Razor Ramon but his real name is Rick Bognar.
Bognar also goes by Rick Titan and recently spoke to the Two Man Power Trip about his relationship with Mahal and how impressed he was to see his amazing physical transformation.
“I saw [Jinder Mahal] a couple weeks ago but maybe I would have liked to have said it but it kinda popped in my head afterward. With the abs, the serratus, the thick wide shoulders and the V-shape he’s got, with the legs that are sticking out of that tiny waist of his I’d say he’s in better shape than I was in my best shape.” Titan went on to talk about how even when he was younger, Jinder Mahal’s appearance eclipses his by a long shot.
Titan went on to say how it seemed like he turned around and Mahal had experienced a total transformation with abs, pecks, and the whole works. He said the change was drastic enough so Jinder doesn’t even look like the same person anymore. “Even in the face he had this smooth rounded face and I saw him at this wedding and his cheeks were just indented right in. Cheek bones poking out you know? Jaw bone poking out, I was like ‘man this guy’s in amazing shape.'”
“I grabbed him by the arm to say ‘hey man, let’s take a photo’ and his arms are like freaking boulders, river rocks man — holy crap! This guy is unbelievable. I give him a lot of credit for that and that was on his own.”
“Visual-wise Jinder doesn’t look too far off from The Ultimate Warrior man” Titan continued. “He’s in peak, peak shape. But for a while because of all the drug issues the guys dropping like flies. I could tell you about twenty names of guys that I’ve been on the road with that are all dead now. And all the drug testing and everything WWE is doing. That I think that wave has kinda passed they’re not looking at all the court injunctions, the trouble, and all the people making judgments, ‘oh that guy’s on steroid’ and all that stuff. It’s actually more of that wave has passed. I think now and even ten years ago a lot of these guys even CM Punk going to the ring — no offense or anything. But if people are paying $200 and they’re a guy my size and I’m only about 230-240 right now and I watch a guy like that walk to the ring or most of the other guys at the time who were very good talkers but I don’t think they were very strong or legit tough and I paid $200 for a ticket and I would be like ‘oh I could take that guy’ well we’re devaluing that $200. Now we go to guys like Jinder who — holy crap I wouldn’t wanna meet him in a dark alley.”
The man who most people know as Fake Razor Ramon then discussed if he and Jinder have much communication. “Not really, and again when I say some of these things I’m exaggerating a little bit and I don’t mean to sound bad or anything but when you’re in WWE — and I did this myself — you don’t reach out to a lot of people who aren’t in your clique anymore. I know I had guys in smaller leagues and they reached out to me while I was there typically I was thinking ‘nah, they’re just getting at me for a job I’m not calling them back man.’ Because I didn’t have a job, I was scraping to hold onto my own, right? But it’s a very elite or elitist kind of an attitude but I didn’t try too too hard to get in touch with him. I think I tried once or twice but he didn’t get back to me.”
“You know there’s a lot of focus, a lot of determination that goes into that and if you’re starting to slip like I was with the Razor Ramon character I knew when my contract was gonna be up after that year they probably weren’t gonna renew me and I wasn’t in a real happy place. I was thinking ‘oh my god what am I gonna do now?’ And if I had a trainer I could have talked to at that time I wouldn’t have reached out like ‘god I think my career is just about over here and I don’t know what I’m gonna do.'”
“I talked to [Jinder Mahal’s] dad briefly and he’s I don’t know maybe 15-20 years older than me but somehow we kinda kept in touch either by Facebook or sometimes by phone and we went and had some great East Indian food together and he said ‘yeah [Jinder’s] not really happy right now and he didn’t know what to do’ and I said tell him he can call me anytime. I’ve been through it and it is tough and I think there should be some kind of coaching or some kind of psychologist — someone to reach out for the guys in any sport for that matter and I do think they have it in football and hockey quite a bit. Where when you’re done with that business it feels like your whole life is caving in. Not to mention that but you’re making a lot of money and then all of a sudden you’re not making almost any money anymore, that’s tough.”
Titan said that even though he and Jinder might not speak to each other much anymore it is still great to see him as champion and it was great to see him at Jinder Mahal’s brother’ wedding and get a chance to chat for a bit. He also said “there’s also a tough as nails edge you have to have to be one of the top guys, to be a World Heavyweight Champion and you don’t go around expressing your feelings a lot, that’s just the way it is. Him and I had some nice chats but there wasn’t anything deep going on, you know what I mean?”
Even though Jinder is the WWE Champion and rather difficult to get a hold of at least he seems to be staying focused to maintain his astonishing look and more importantly hold onto his treasured championship. After all, he had to go through a lot to get to where he is today.
Here are some more trending WWE news stories from the past week:
MAJOR name returning to WWE?
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Major name being considered as the headliner for the 2018 WWE Hall Of Fame
WWE is erasing another person from their history
Sasha Banks gets very candid about the way WWE is booking her
Reason why Braun Strowman was missing from this week’s WWE Raw
Credit for the quotes in this article goes to The Two Man Powertrip with a H/T to WrestlingNews.co for the transcription
