Could Mustafa Ali return to the WWE?
The former WWE Cruiserweight Champion sat down and spoke to Chris Van Vliet and was asked about a possible return. Ali certainly didn’t shoot down the idea of going back to the promotion.
“I think there’s multiple paths, yeah." Ali said. "The thing is, there’s good relations there. The thing with them moving to Netflix is very interesting because it just opens up — I don’t know how much the show is gonna change as far as dynamic, as far as ratings, as far as what they’re okay with.”
“Business is so good for them, I do think there is a pathway back there. There’s good relations, there’s good contact there. Even the release was like very nice, a lot of nice messages were sent. At the end of the day, it’s on me, right? If I built something that’s profitable and something that they see, oh this plugs in. With wrestling, everything is right place, right time. It’s gotta be right for them, it’s gotta be right for me, it’s gonna be at the right time, it’s gotta be at the right place. When one person is here — If I want to go do this, it doesn’t fit. If they're going a direction where there’s no spot for me, it doesn’t fit. It’s gotta be right place, right time. So here’s the right place, right time.”
The former WWE star first made his way into the company thanks to the Cruiserweight Classic. Ali was an early pioneer on 205 Live, with the former WWE Cruiserweight Champion tearing it up against Cedric Alexander, Buddy Murphy, and Hideo Itami. Though 205 Live was barely watched, it did produce some of the best wrestling on WWE programming.
Once 205 Live was done, it went all downhill for Ali. The 39-year-old was in line for a huge push on Smackdown in 2018, but an injury at the Elimination Chamber pay-per-view derailed it. That was the year that Kofi Mania took place. Since then, Ali has had to deal with being in the lower card; The Retribution faction was just the beginning of the end for the former WWE superstar.
Things did start looking up for Ali when he went back down to NXT, and it seemed as if he was on the verge of winning the NXT North American Championship until he was surprisingly released from his contract.
Ali has been working various independent promotions ever since. He notably had a lengthy run in TNA Wrestling where he won the X-Division Championship. At the moment, he’s currently not signed to any promotion, so if he did get the call from WWE then he'll be able to appear instantly.