Ali also spoke about his post-WWE campaign video.
Present day, Mustafa Ali is continuing to make dates for various promotions in addition to his work in TNA Wrestling, where he is the reigning X Division Champion.
After his non-compete clause was up following his release from WWE, Ali pushed out his campaign video and that was tailed by a handful of promotions announcing him for their shows.
While speaking to Pro Wrestling Illustrated, Ali said he wanted to do the campaign character in WWE, but added that the ‘general logic’ was they did not want to lean into anything political or religious.
So the vision (for this current character) was brewing in my head since actually the cruiserweight division in the 205 Live days, and there was a couple of instances throughout WWE where you would see, kind of, you know, examples of this character or pitches to this character or maybe one promo would pop up. But eventually, it would get shut down because the general logic with WWE was they don’t do anything political or religious, you know? Now that the character’s kind of up and running, I think people can see that there’s nothing political about it. It’s just the nuances of a politician; campaigns, protests, being voted, etcetera, speeches. I’m not saying anything political, and I feel that’s where the disconnect was with creative and myself so I have been thinking about this concept for years.
He further dove into the campaign video he rolled out. He said it required a lot of thought and effort. Ali wanted to avoid the prison break concept. He feels his video is on the same level as Jon Moxley’s post-WWE video and Cody Rhodes’ list.
The video you are talking about (post-WWE campaign video), I’m very, very, very, very proud of it because basically, it was a very well-thought-of marketing campaign. I was a marketing coordinator initially before becoming a police officer, before becoming a WWE superstar. But I’ve always had the sense of marketing and we all know what typically happens when someone leaves WWE. They have a prison break-style video… Is your character a criminal? Why are you breaking out of prison? The world’s gonna be watching this. Invest in yourself so that you can hit the ground running…
I think now, I’ve set the bar. I remember everyone really praising (Jon) Moxley’s prison break promo and when he did it, his video and the same thing with the Cody Rhodes list so now, I feel like I’m in the discussion now with that. Like, oh, if you wanna make a splash, Mustafa Ali’s Campaign video and the marketing campaign behind it, that’s the new measuring stick in the business.
Coming up for Ali is TNA’s Against All Odds special. He’ll be defending the X Division Championship against Trent Seven. It’ll be his sixth defense of the belt.
Ali also ventured into New Japan Pro-Wrestling. He wrestled Lio Rush on the Resurgence Kickoff show and back in April, he took on Hiromu Takahashi.
If the quotes in this article are used, please credit Pro Wrestling Illustrated with an H/T to POST Wrestling for the transcriptions.
