RETRIBUTION leader Mustafa Ali was in action on the 3/15 episode of Monday Night Raw and he unsuccessfully challenged Riddle for the United States Championship. It was back in October that Ali revealed himself to be the leader of RETRIBUTION that currently consists of T-BAR, MACE, Slapjack and RECKONING.
While making the media rounds to promote the U.S. Title match, Ali chatted with Comicbook.com and discussed the formation of the group which had been around months prior to his reveal. Ali stated that it wasn’t until the day of the reveal that he found out he’d be leading the group.
I wasn’t around during the formation of the group, so I don’t know. You never know here. They keep secrets for a reason. I found out I was joining Retribution that day, but I had been auditioning, so to speak. Again, man, storytelling, I kind of looked at my career at a snapshot. I made my return. Nothing really happened. I was off for seven months, for no apparent reason to me other than just creative had nothing for me.
When I was initially looking at the mirror, I go, ‘What is wrong with me? Nothing’s wrong with me. Look at me.’ Again, after seven months, you have to eventually have that look in the mirror and go, ‘What am I missing?’ I think the thing I was missing was a little bit of edge. I knew I could cut a great promo. But again, within the confines of being a good guy, you’re very limited as to what you can say.
So I presented the idea of doing something. It wasn’t being the leader of Retribution, it was, I met with Vince McMahon and the creative writing team and said, ‘I think I’m capable of doing more and this is the route I’d like to go.’ And it was basically, ‘Well, you’d have to show us.’
So I recorded my own promos, my own videos. I had to audition basically to not be a good guy anymore. And if you go back and you watch these WWE Main Event matches I was having before joining Retribution, you would see the small details, the storytelling when I was slowly becoming more aggressive, a little bit more violent, having a little bit more of these heelish tendencies in my matches.
In early March, Ali shared on social media that he is currently working with a torn PCL.
Wai Ting and John Pollock recapped the 3/15 edition of Raw so head over to the “podcasts” section of POST Wrestling to hear the latest Rewind-A-RAW.
