Mustafa Ali made his grand return to NXT last week.
This comes after he was unceremoniously fired from the company in 2023 despite having a NXT North American title match against Dominick Mysterio at No Mercy. Now, Ali gets a chance to win something that he earned two years ago at the first ever TNA vs. NXT Showdown event this Tuesday.
Ali will be fighting Ethan Page for the North American Championship. The current TNA star is thrilled about crossing the line and he explained to Denise Salcedo about his first return promo and how Shawn Michaels guided him to cutting a real and honest promo against Page on Tuesday.
“I gotta be perfectly honest with you, that’s what the original idea was. When I got there, I kind of shied away from it. It wasn’t that I wasn’t comfortable with it. It’s just that I feel like I’ve said this before, I’m at a stage in my career, especially with TNA, where I feel like I’ve presented this, this politician, like a very powerful, very confident individual that kind of condescendingly weaves and snakes his way into the match.
So when I got there, I did meet with Shawn, and I kind of pitched a different version of the same promo, but what I thought would be more in line with what I did. Initially, he was like, ‘Yeah, I kind of see it.’ Then I want to say it wasn’t that long before we’re on, he changed his mind, and he pulled me aside with the writer. He goes, ‘I’m telling you, you’ve got to be real on this one. You’ve got to let people know what happened. You’ve got to trust me on this. Start off how you want, but then midway through, just take the mask off and look him down in the eye and tell everybody what happened. I’m telling you. You’ve gotta trust me.’
Ali was a bit skeptical about Shawn’s approach to his return promo, but the former X-Division knew that it was the right decision to follow Shawn’s advice.
“At the end of the day, Shawn Michaels tells you how he wants it, he wants it. I won’t lie. I thought he was wrong initially, and then I went out, and as I’m cutting the promo, I myself started to feel it, and there was this pin drop silence. I think I said something along the lines of,
‘My dream was on the horizon, but that day, Mr. Page, the sun did not rise,’ and you could just hear everyone felt that was real. Then, I went on to what happened, and the reaction afterwards, and them cheering, and even the chatter online afterwards. I think people genuinely, genuinely would be upset if I did not win. So when I came back, I looked at Shawn, I go, ‘You were right.’ It’s one of those things that even all this time in the game, I know me, but still, I’ll 100% say that was 100% Shawn. Shawn made the call, and he made the right call.”
Check out the full interview where he talks about his experience returning to NXT, TNA, and so much more!