WATCH: Jinder Mahal survives nasty crash to defend WWE Championship title

New Delhi: Defending his title in his third pay-per-view event, The Modern Day Maharaja, Jinder Mahal retained his WWE Championship title at SummerSlam 2017, defeating Shinsuke Nakamura at the Barclays Centre, New York, today. ( WWE SummerSlam 2017: As it happened )

Shinshuke Nakamura had headed down to the second biggest pay-per-view event in the WWE calendar, defeating 15-time World Champions John Cena at last week's SmackDown live. Stats was on his side – the Japanese had never lost the main roster match in WWE.

For Mahal, it was his third title defence match in a pay-per-view event since clinching the belt away from Randy Orton at Backlash in May, becoming the 50th WWE Champion and first of the Indian origin. After his Battleground victory over Randy Orton in a Punjabi Prison match, Jinder Mahal had come forth to demand a new opponent for SummerSlam. John Cena had approached but was later set up with Nakamura for a No.1 contenders match. Despite it being Mahal's first SummerSlam appearance, history laid by his side – the Championship title has always been defended at this pay-per-view event, since 1992

The match kicked off and Nakamura was the one who dominated through the first part of the match. Umpteen punches and kicks from the challenger showed that the night might see the end of the Indian, until the interference from the Singh Brothers.

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.@SinghBrosWWE took it upon themselves to step into the ring, & @ShinsukeN was having NONE of it! #SummerSlam @DiGiornoPizza #CrispyPanPizza pic.twitter.com/VW73TZXTUS — WWE (@WWE) August 21, 2017

Mahal went in for a spear to the Challenger, missed it and struck the ring post. With Mahal writhing in pain, it seemed a perfect opportunity for the Japanese to rewrite the history books and just then the Singh Brothers stepped in. Though Nakamura fought them off, the interference gave ample time to the Modern Day Maharaja to step up and finish off Nakamura with an arm-trap neckbreaker.

Mahal, ergo, not only retained his title once again, but also became the third WWE superstar to successfully defend his title in SummerSlam debut.

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