Rinku Singh Rajput is popularly known as Veer Mahaan and currently works for WWE under the Raw brand. In this article, we will learn more about the dominant heel that has been squashing enhancement talents on Raw for a few weeks.
| Date of birth | 8 August 1988 |
| Age | 33 |
| Born in | Gopiganj, Uttar Pradesh, India |
| Zodiac | Leo |
| Siblings | 9 (names not known) |
| College | Guru Gobind Singh Sports College, Lucknow |
| Billed height | 6 feet 4 inches |
| Billed weight | 276 lb |
| Social media | Twitter, Instagram |
Early life
Singh grew up in a very humble background. His father was a truck driver in a rural village called Gopiganj, Bhadohi in Uttar Pradesh. Singh lived with his parents and his eight siblings in a one-room house. They had to arrange their water from a well.
Singh played sports like javelin and cricket while growing up. He was also a junior national javelin medalist. In 2008, Singh participated in a reality television show The Million Dollar Arm which was designed to find out who could throw the fastest and most accurate baseball. Singh’s life changed after participating in this show as he won the contest outlasting over 37,000 participants, and throwing an impressive 87 miles per hour. Interestingly, Singh had never heard of Baseball when he won the competition. He earned a sum of $100,000 as prize money.
Veer Mahan’s entry in Baseball
Singh was determined to make a name for himself in Baseball and he traveled to Los Angeles to train with University of Southern California pitching coach Tom House.
Singh has revealed that most of his family members did not agree with his decision to leave the country and try his luck in Baseball.
He was accompanied to Los Angeles by the runner-up of The Million Dollar Arm show, Dinesh Patel. Both of them attended Baseball matches and learned English during their initial days in the city.
Singh had a tryout in front of scouts from 20 Major League Basketball teams in November 2008 and his pitches reached 92 miles per hour. Scouts of Pittsburgh Pirates were impressed and the general manager of the team Neal Huntington signed Singh and also his friend Patel who had participated in the tryout too.
They became the first Indians to sign for American Major League Basketball. Singh became the first Indian citizen to pitch in a professional baseball game in the United States on 4 July 2009.
He made the World All-Star team for the 2011 Australian Baseball League All-Star Game after playing for Adelaide Bite in the Australian Baseball League in the 2011-12 season.
Injuries
Singh struggled with injuries and missed the entire 2013 season. The following year he once again missed the whole season due to Tommy John surgery.
He went on to miss his third consecutive season in a row in 2015 as he suffered a broken elbow. In 2016, he finally made one appearance for the Gulf Coast League Pirates.
NXT Career
Singh signed with WWE on 14 January 2018 and he made his debut later in the year in a loss to Kassius Ohno in an NXT live event. In early 2019 he started being managed by Robert Strauss on NXT live events.
On the 25 March 2020 episode of NXT, Rinku formed a tag team alongside Saurav Gurjar. Their team was known as Indus Sher and was managed by Malcolm Bivens. Soon Rinku and Saurav dropped their last names and continued wrestling on NXT.
At the Superstar Spectacle on January 22, 2021, dedicated to India’s Republic Day, Rinku and Saurav teamed with Drew McIntyre to defeat Jinder Mahal and The Bollywood Boyz in a six-man tag team match.
Move to the main roster
On the May 10 episode of RAW, Rinku got the new name Veer and along with Shanky, aligned with former WWE Champion Jinder Mahal. They wrestled in the mid to lower card.
As a part of the 2021 Draft, Mahal and Shanky were moved to the SmackDown brand while Veer remained on Raw. Veer was repackaged as Veer Mahaan. He wrestled on Main Event but remained absent from Raw. We saw many vignettes of him towards the later part of 2021 where he was shown to be returning to the red brand soon.
However, the vignettes continued to air for months and months before Veer finally appeared on the Raw after WrestleMania 38 and decimated Rey and Dominik Mysterio. He went on to beat Dominik Mysterio the following week and since has been squashing enhancement talents every week on Raw.
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