At midnight today, Mustafa Ali and several other former WWE talents who were released in September officially became free agents. During his time at WWE, Ali failed to capture any championships and had openly begun to vent frustrations about his booking. Toward the end of his run, he was shuffled to the WWE NXT brand after not being selected for a brand in the WWE Draft.
In NXT, he aired a promo with heavy political overtones that was never followed up on. Haus of Wrestling has heard that network executives were unprepared for the segment and its tone, and that’s why the angle was quickly dropped. At 12:21 pm EST, Ali released a video on his X account that shared many of the same political themes but amped up significantly from what was shown on WWE TV.
“Esteemed citizens of the world,” he begins. “Tonight, I stand before you a free man. A man no longer affiliated with his former party! And now I can finally bring forth a proposal that will turn all of our problems into possibilities! You see, our great sport has fallen into the hands of leaders who are corrupt. Leaders who are selfish.
“Leaders that kicked down the door of opportunity, only to shut that door behind them. And now, with righteous anger in my heart, I am here to announce that I am launching a campaign to rid our sport of these corrupt leaders. I will right their wrongs, and I will be the leader that we need because in Ali we trust.”
Among the many images flashed during the two-minute vignette, Kazuchika Okada, Impact’s Alex Shelley, AAA Mega Champion El Hijo de Vikingo, Matt Cardona, Will Ospreay, “Speedball” Mike Bailey, TMDK, and Swerve Strickland can all be seen, hinting at future matches. If Ali does intend on wrestling everyone teased, it means he does not plan on sticking with one promotion. The names above can be found in NJPW, Impact, AAA, GCW, MLW, and AEW. One company we do know Ali will be competing for is PROGRESS Wrestling, who announced him for their show next month not long ago.
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