Rinku Singh Rajput is an Indian professional wrestler and former professional baseball player. Rinku was born on 8 August 1988. He is currently signed to WWE, where he performs on the Raw brand under the ring name Veer Mahaan, or simply Veer, as a member of Indus Sher, alongside Sanga and Jinder Mahal. Singh was signed by the Pittsburgh Pirates organization after he won a pitching contest on a 2008 reality television show The Million Dollar Arm. He was the first Indian to play professional baseball and spent several seasons in the minor leagues, reaching the Single-A level. He is the subject of the movie Million Dollar Arm.
| Name | Rinku Singh Rajpu |
| D.O.B | 8 August 198 |
| Height | 6 ft 4 in (193 cm) |
| Weight | 275 lb (125 kg) |
| Occupation | Professional Wrestler |
| Debut | 2018 |
| In-ring name | Rinku,Rinku Singh,Veer,Veer Mahaan. |
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Rinku Singh Rajput was born on 8 August 1988 in the rural village of Gopiganj, Uttar Pradesh, India. Singh grew up in poverty, the son of a truck driver, in a rural village called Gopiganj, Bhadohi in Uttar Pradesh. Singh was one of nine siblings who all lived in the family’s one-room house. The home had electricity but relied on well water. Singh threw the javelin and played cricket as a little boy. He was a junior national javelin medalist. Singh is an alumnus of the Guru Gobind Singh Sports College, Lucknow.
In early 2008, Singh entered an Indian reality television show The Million Dollar Arm. The contest was created by an American sports agent J. B. Bernstein and his partners Ash Vasudevan and Will Chang to find the individual in the country who could throw the fastest and most accurate baseball. Having never heard of baseball before, Singh won the contest out of over 37,000 participants after throwing 87 miles per hour. The grand prize for the contest was $100,000.
After winning the contest, Singh and runner-up Dinesh Patel traveled to Los Angeles where they trained with University of Southern California pitching coach Tom House, who trained pitchers such as Nolan Ryan and Randy Johnson. Singh said that most of his family did not agree with his decision to go to the United States. On their first day in the United States the two attended their first baseball game at USC. They continued to learn the game from House and Bernstein, as well as learning English.
Singh, along with Patel, tried out in front of scouts from 20 Major League Baseball teams in November 2008, and Singh’s pitches reached 92 miles per hour (148 km/h). Reports from Pittsburgh Pirates scouts Joe Ferrone and Sean Campbell led to general manager Neal Huntington signing both to contracts with the organization. With the deal, the pair became the first Indians to sign American major league baseball contracts. Singh and Patel began the 2009 baseball season with the Pirates’ Gulf Coast League affiliate. On 4 July 2009, Singh became the first Indian citizen to appear in a professional baseball game in the US. He pitched the seventh inning.
On 13 July 2009, Singh won his first professional baseball game in America, striking out the only batter he faced. Singh opened the 2011 season in the Dominican Summer League. Singh pitched well in eight games spread over the DSL, Gulf Coast League, and New York–Penn League, then joined the West Virginia Power of the South Atlantic League in July 2011. The Pirates re-signed Singh on 9 November 2015. He made one appearance for the Gulf Coast League Pirates in 2016, pitching one scoreless inning.
On 14 January 2018, Singh signed a contract with WWE. On the 25 March 2020 episode of NXT, Singh, Saurav Gurjar, and manager Malcolm Bivens made their televised debut, attacking NXT Tag Team Champion Matt Riddle. The following week, Bivens introduced them as Rinku and Saurav, while revealing their team name to be Indus Sher (meaning Indian Tigers). On 8 April episode of NXT, Indus Sher defeated Ever-Rise in their debut match. Indus Sher vanished from television after June. At Superstar Spectacle on 22 January 2021, Rinku and Saurav resurfaced and teamed with Drew McIntyre in a six-man tag-team match to defeat Jinder Mahal and The Bollywood Boyz.
On the 10 May episode of Raw, Singh, with the new ring name Veer, along with Shanky, would align themselves with Jinder Mahal. During the 2021 Draft, Mahal and Shanky were drafted to the SmackDown brand while Veer remained on the Raw brand, ending their alliance. Now a singles wrestler, Veer’s ring name was tweaked to Veer Mahaan. After months of vignettes hyping his debut, Mahaan finally returned to television on the April 4, 2022 episode of Raw, attacking Rey Mysterio and Dominik Mysterio. Over the following weeks on Raw, Mahaan defeated Mysterios in separate matches, and defeated several local wrestlers.
On the October 4 episode of NXT, Mahaan returned to the developmental brand, teasing a reunion with his former tag team partner Saurav, now known as Sanga. Mahaan returned to the main roster as he and Indus Sher were drafted to the Raw brand in the 2023 WWE Draft.
