On last night’s WWE Monday Night Raw, Mustafa Ali was interviewed backstage, near the entrance curtain, by Byron Saxton. The veteran backstage correspondent wanted to know how Ali was feeling ahead of his Intercontinental Championship match against GUNTHER at Night of Champions. After composing himself, the former RETRIBUTION leader began an emotional promo about how much the opportunity meant to him after years of perceived failure on the main roster.
Just as Ali was grabbing the fans’ attention, Brock Lesnar burst into the area, pushing past Ali. Once The Beast got to the curtain to enter the arena, he took a moment to look back at the former cruiserweight, and delivered the now infamous line, “Get a life, kid.”
Ali left the scene dejected after having his moment squashed, and Lesnar would make his way into the arena to continue his feud with Cody Rhodes. In a post-WWE Raw video released on his personal Twitter account, Ali revealed what he intended to say before being rudely interrupted by the former WWE and UFC Champion.
“So, earlier tonight, I was trying to say something but I didn’t really get the chance to say what I wanted to say,” he began. “So, I’ll say it now, I don’t want to continue pretending to be something that I’m not. I mean, my whole life, I’ve dreamed about doing something great, about being a champion. When I look back at my career, I haven’t even gotten close to being any of those things.
“And you’ve all seen it’s been failure after failure, and this is why no one believes that I even have a chance in hell of defeating GUNTHER and becoming the Intercontinental Champion but for some reason, I still believe I can. I know I can. I’m still Mustafa Ali. I’m still that guy that was the ultimate underdog that would never stay down. I was the heart of the cruiserweight division. I was the guy that pinned a reigning WWE Champion. That was me, I was doing that while I was breaking down barriers, and shattering stereotypes. That was me.
“Night of Champions takes place in Saudi Arabia. There’s gonna be kids out there that look just like me, that have a name just like mine. They need to see the real Mustafa Ali, and I need to see the real Mustafa Ali too because I need to finally look in the mirror and be proud of the man that’s staring back at me. So, I’m laying it all on the line. At Night of Champions, if I can’t be great, if I can’t be a champion, then I don’t deserve to be here. This Saturday, either my dream finally comes through. Or, my dream dies. And if it’s gonna die, then I’m going down with it.”
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You can watch Ali’s full social media video courtesy of the embedded player below.