Mustafa Ali Discusses Canceled Creative Plans For Him In WWE
In his seven-year run with WWE, Mustafa Ali notably entered the Cruiserweight Classic, led the Retribution stable, and challenged GUNTHER for the Intercontinental Championship, albeit unsuccessfully. As revealed on "Insight With Chris Van Vliet," Ali was also once slated to win a different title in the company — that being the NXT North American Championship. Like many things in WWE, though, that plan was subject to a major change.
"The plan was actually to put the North American Championship on me months prior [to the scheduled title match against Dominik Mysterio]," Ali said. "But WWE is so smart with advertising and contract negotiation. So NXT, the network deal was coming up. Shawn [Michaels] in NXT is awesome. He explains to me, he's like, 'Hey, we're gonna put the North American Championship on you.' What happens is the network deal is coming up, and this is when Judgment Day, specifically Dom, is just white hot. I mean, they're still white hot right now, but Dom was next level right there. So they were like, 'Hey, everyone in Judgment Day has a championship. We want to put a championship on Dom, and we want to spike the ratings for NXT.'"
As Ali alluded to, his return to "WWE NXT" came around the same time as the brand's television rights negotiations with the CW Network, which was later finalized and announced in November 2023. In September 2023, Ali was prepared to challenge Dominik Mysterio for the NXT North American Championship at "NXT" No Mercy. Just days before the premium live event, however, he was released from WWE, causing the company to pivot to Trick Wiliams as Mysterio's challenger instead.
Mustafa Ali Almost Won Money in the Bank As Well
Another nixed creative plan came in 2019 when Mustafa Ali was initially penciled in as the winner of the Men's Money in the Bank ladder match. A last-minute call from former WWE CEO Vince McMahon, however, later changed the course of the match.
"I show up to Money in the Bank, and they're like, 'Hey, you're winning it.' I go, 'What? Okay, cool,'" Ali said. "So this is so funny because I'm one of the shorter guys in the match. So they actually had me climb up the ladder so they could adjust the briefcase so it was within grabbing distance of me. And all day we're putting this match together.
"Everyone's like, 'Hey, man, Congrats. Yeah, man, this is awesome.' I was like, Oh, maybe I can get this briefcase to light up, because I was wearing the light of stuff at the time. I'm thinking this is one of those cloud nine moments, I can't believe this is happening, because it's not happening."
When the other competitors began making their entrances for the respective match, Ali found out that his victory was actually not happening after all. While donning his light-up mask and jacket, Ali specifically recalled producer Jamie Noble telling him to quickly speak with McMahon in the Gorilla position. Through Ali's flashing lights, McMahon instructed the star to proceed with the planned spot of him climbing up the ladder to grab the MITB briefcase. Before Ali were to unhook it, though, a mystery entrant would emerge, knock him off the ladder, and take possession of the briefcase instead. That mystery figure, of course, later turned out to be "The Beast" Brock Lesnar.