Aiden English Says Mustafa Ali Is "A Gold Mine Waiting To Happen"

Former WWE Superstar Aiden English chatted with Wrestling Inc.'s Nick Hausman on The Wrestling Inc. Daily recently where English discussed the training he has done since his release back in April. English revealed that Mustafa Ali helped him out for his appearance at Zelo Pro Wrestling's Stronger Together.

"Obviously, just from being an athlete, from being a wrestler keeping in shape just in general is something that stayed with me even being out of the ring for a while, but then eventually been lucky enough to be here in Chicago," English stated. "Mustafa Ali's one of my buddies man, and every so often, he would get home. He would invite me over. We know a couple of people around town.

"We get a ring, and we roll around. That guy can go like nobody's business. So he pushes me especially after being out of the ring for a while. Running through some drills, different kind of conditioning things and so he's helped me a little bit, and so it's been good at least to get back in there every night, even if it's only every now and then yeah. So I'm completely and totally utterly cold."

The topic of Ali brought up the discussion of Ali's lack of push in WWE. Ali has taken it in stride by encouraging fans to continue to support him. English admitted that he does not know why Ali hasn't gotten the push that many fans are hoping for, but he notes how talented Ali is and his storytelling ability.

"I'm scratching my head on that one too, and I'm the first guy to jump up, having been in the business, a lot of things are way more than meets the eye," English noted. "So when people are like, 'this guy's not getting this.' I'm the the first guy to go, 'look, there's so much more than you understand,' but I'm going to agree with you. Ali is one of the most talented guys, looks great. He talks great. He speaks not just like [a] cool catchphrase, but he speaks [with] conviction. He speaks his heart.

"The guy is embraces the art of the story, which is something I think a lot of people miss in this business. It's more than just the moves, more than just the presentation. He really embraces the art of the story. I know I'm not there anymore, so I couldn't exactly tell you, but I'm with you and everyone else, and they need to jump on that sooner than later. The guys is a gold mine waiting to happen."

Hausman pointed out that Ali is just one of many examples of WWE Superstars who receive start-stop pushes. Ricochet was brought up as another example, and English talked about the many factors as to why that is the case.

"Sure, and I mean, I wish I had a very clear answer for you. I don't," English admitted. "Even I being there, I'm only privy to so much. Obviously, there's so many layers of production and who's in charge of who's writing what, just deciding what. There's a lot of factors. Sometimes there's things like there's interactions that you don't see. Sometimes there's business decisions to react to whether it's ratings or whether it's audience reaction.

"That's the one thing about running a huge television show with so many talent. There's so many factors coming in from networks to advertising to creative storytelling to injuries. It's really hard to put a nail down on one thing. Very rarely is there ever like, oh so-and-so did that? He's screwed kind of thing. It's usually a culmination of a few of those factors."

One of English's key roles in WWE was being part of the The Vaudevillains. English noted that NXT has changed so much from when he was there. Speaking from his experience, he called NXT "corporate punk rock" talking about the fight that everyone had starting with Triple H motivating the roster to top the main roster shows.

"Obviously, NXT has grown exponentially, even since I was there. So I almost can't even comment on what it's like now. It's gotta be a such a different feeling now, but when when we were there in the kind of thick of that first sort of rise in 2015-2016, I mean it was cool. It was like weird. It was like this weird thing because you still know you're still part of WWE. You're part of it the corporation, the man, whatever you want to call it.

"You're on the team ship, but it felt like corporate punk rock in a way. We knew we were part of the corporation, but we also felt like we're the young angry kids trying to poke the bears up top. Hunter was great at stoking that. He was giving the speeches before every Takeover going, 'make SummerSlam follow that. Make WrestleMania follow you. Make Survivor Series follow you guys,' and we did that. And I think we made it a tough act to follow, and so there was this kind of like, F yeah, let's let's stick it to them feeling. That is definitely, 100% the big difference between the two."

Aiden English appeared recently at Zelo Pro Wrestling's Stronger Together. To order the replay of the event on FITE please click HERE. Aiden's full interview aired as part of a recent episode of our podcast, The Wrestling Inc. Daily. Subscribe to get the latest episodes as soon as it's released Monday – Friday afternoon by clicking here.