Every era of WWE will be populated with wrestlers who are tremendously talented yet undervalued by the company itself — and sometimes even the fans. Take, for example, Mustafa Ali, who’s been with WWE since 2016. In the years since he signed with the company, Ali’s been both a high flying cruiserweight babyface and a villainous faction leader as well as capable of putting on show-stealing matches even though he’s never held a belt in the company.
Mustafa Ali has been in the news lately for backstage reasons, so now’s as good a time as any to go over Ali’s career and what fans should know about him.
10 Wore A Mask On The Indies
Hailing from Illinois, the future Mustafa Ali debuted on the indie scene in 2003, wrestling for smaller area promotions before moving on to bigger outfits like Dreamwave, IWA Mid-South, and even out of state for Jersey All Pro Wrestling. In his early days, promoters wanted to make him a foreign heel for cheap 9/11 heat, but Ali instead chose to wear a mask, working under the name Alto to avoid discriminaton. However, eventually he relented to promoters and worked as Prince Mustafa Ali, but soon dropped the foreign heel element when he got uncomfortable with the impression it was making on younger fans.
9 Worked As A Cop
After graduating college and going into marketing, Mustafa Ali would find a new career in law enforcement, but didn’t give up on the squared circle. In the Homewood suburb of Chicago, Ali would wrestle in the evenings and then have to work nights as a cop. Feeling he could enact some positive change in the police force, Ali spent four years working night shifts before eventually leaving the force to wrestle full-time with WWE. Even his initial foray into WWE with the Cruiserweight Classic was done while he was still a police officer.
8 Entered The Cruiserweight Classic As An Alternate
Due to his real-life responsibilities, Mustafa Ali largely stuck to the midwest indie scene with the occasional exception, despite offers to branch out further in the wrestling game. In 2016, Ali was tapped to be an alternate in WWE’s Cruiserweight Classic, a tournament that would kickstart a revived cruiserweight division in the company.
Ali would become an official competitor in the tournament thanks to Brazil’s Zumbi being forced to drop out. From there, Ali would lose the first round to Lince Dorado, though he would wrestle some matches on NXT following his participation in the tournament.
7 The Heart Of 205 Live
Months after his WWE debut, Mustafa Ali debuted on the company’s devoted cruiserweight show, 205 Live, in late 2016. Initially presented as a heel character, Ali got a huge babyface reaction from a hometown Chicago crowd weeks later, necessitating a face turn. From there, Ali became one of the top stars of the brand, putting on standout matches with Buddy Murphy, Cedric Alexander, and Hideo Itami. Before long, Ali would be dubbed “The Heart of 205 Live.”
6 Moved To SmackDown
In late 2018, Mustafa Ali ended up getting moved over to SmackDown, where he got a surprisingly big babyface push, entering the main event scene against WWE Champion Daniel Bryan. He was scheduled to compete for the WWE Championship in the Elimination Chamber in 2019, but an injury would have him replaced by Kofi Kingston. Kingston suddenly became a phenomenon as a result, so much that when Ali was in a three-way for the belt at Fastlane instead of Kofi, he actually got a poor reaction from the live crowd.
5 Briefly Renamed Ali
Like many WWE stars before him — Big E, Cesaro, Neville, and Rusev, just to name a few — eventually Mustafa Ali lost part of his name on the main roster. In April of 2019, he began wrestling sans first name, instead being billed as simply “Ali.” However, unlike his aforementioned peers, the Ali experiment would last only a matter of months, and he’d be back to his classic Mustafa Ali moniker by mid-November of the same year.
4 The SmackDown Hacker
In Spring of 2020, WWE began airing mysterious vignettes where a shadow figure would observe the SmackDown roster on video screens. Mustafa Ali was meant to be that figure, an enigmatic hacker character who’d sow the seeds of discord among the roster. WWE even went as far as establishing a Twitter account for the character, called The Message.
The SmackDown Hacker angle didn’t really materialize, but he did serve as the impetus for the Mandy Rose/Otis romance storyline that was the talk of WWE for a few months in 2020.
3 Leader of Retribution
Eventually, WWE found a different role for Ali. In the late Summer of 2020, WWE introduced a new invading heel faction called Retribution, made up of repackaged wrestlers from NXT. By the fall, they revealed that they had a leader, namely a newly heel Mustafa Ali, who would be revealed as the SmackDown Hacker as an aside. Ali’s time with the floundering Retribution would last until March 2021, when the other members of the group would betray him, breaking up the faction.
2 Highlight Of The Undercard
After the end of Retribution, Mustafa Ali found himself in a rivalry with fellow high flyer Ricochet, the entirety of which played out on WWE’s minor show, Main Event. The two clashed in four matches, including a must-watch 2/3 falls bout, most of which the two stars promoted themselves via their social media accounts. After that was said and done, Ali entered a storyline with a newly promoted Mansoor, taking the young babyface under his wing, which would culminate in a match at Crown Jewel in 2021.
1 Stuck In His Contract
Following a series of losses in October 2021, Mustafa Ali disappeared from WWE television for several months, resurfacing in early 2022 to publicly announce he was requesting a release from his contract. Unfortunately, WWE declined that request, meaning that Ali remained signed with the company despite desires. After reports that there were still years left on his contract, Ali tweeted “I’ll see ya all in like 2 1/2 years.