Mustafa Ali shares the feedback that was given to him by Vince McMahon.
Since arriving to WWE’s main roster, Mustafa Ali has undergone several character changes. He was revealed as the leader of RETRIBUTION and after that group came to an end, he worked as a singles talent until being paired with Mansoor and now he and Mansoor are set to go one-on-one at WWE Crown Jewel.
While speaking to ‘Metro’, Ali said he struggled with maintaining a TV presence during the no-fans run of WWE TV and he approached Vince McMahon about it. He asked McMahon what he was missing and was told that he was too polished, too clean and too nice.
Even pre-pandemic, I was struggling to maintain television presence – and I know it was all character based. When you pitch a million and one ideas as far as stories, characters, promos, this and that – and you always get told that you’re good, but then nothing happens – you start pointing the finger at everybody except for you. After sitting at home for seven months and then finally coming back to Monday Night Raw, only to pick up a few victories and then to go back to not being on Monday Night Raw and now being stuck on Main Event, you’re kinda scratching your head. Like, what have I gotta do? And then you realize, you’ve gotta go ask the hard questions. I went up to Vince McMahon himself and said, ‘What am I missing?’ [He said], ‘Too polished, too clean, too nice, I don’t now if you have it in you!’
Ali stated that once McMahon was pleased with how he flipped the switch in his matches, he started to visit Vince in his office to cut promos for him. That eventually led to Ali becoming the leader of RETRIBUTION.
Once he was satisfied with those [matches], I stared cutting promos for him. I would go into his office, I would cut a promo on him, this and that. I didn’t know, because I’d never asked – I didn’t say, ‘Hey I wanna be with RETRIBUTION.’ I was just auditioning for my own thing. The day of the reveal is when I found out. I was thinking about going this way, but they went this way. At the end of the day, it was an opportunity to be on TV on Monday Night Raw weekly for multiple segments. That’s leaps and bounds from what I was doing the year prior.
Mustafa Ali noted that his earnings from Crown Jewel will be donated to charity. WWE talents have arrived in Saudi Arabia for the event and below is the match card:
- WWE Universal Championship: Roman Reigns (c) (w/ Paul Heyman) vs. Brock Lesnar
- SmackDown Women’s Championship — Triple-Threat Match: Becky Lynch (c) vs. Bianca Belair vs. Sasha Banks
- Raw Tag Team Championships: RK-Bro (Randy Orton & Riddle) (c) vs. AJ Styles & Omos
- WWE Championship: Big E (c) vs. Drew McIntyre
- No Holds Barred Match: Goldberg vs. Bobby Lashley
- Hell In A Cell Match: Edge vs. Seth Rollins
- Mustafa Ali vs. Mansoor
- King of the Ring Finals: Xavier Woods vs. Finn Balor
- Queen’s Crown Finals: Zelina Vega vs. Doudrop
- Kickoff Show: The Usos (Jimmy & Jey Uso) vs. Shelton Benjamin & Cedric Alexander
