As noted earlier today, Mustafa Ali took to Twitter to request his release from WWE.
“I have a message that is much bigger than my dreams in pro wrestling,” Ali wrote. “Despite my best efforts, I will not be able to deliver this message while working with WWE. Therefore, I am requesting my release from WWE.”
In an update from Fightful, inquiries were made about Ali’s WWE status since he has been absent from WWE in recent weeks. It was noted that Ali asked for only one show off for paternity leave despite not being featured on WWE programming since November 2021. It led people within the company to believe that his paternity leave was being extended, however, a lot of other reasons reportedly led to this extended absence.
Though he has been available to return since the first week of December 2021 and there was a vignette filmed for a Mustafa Ali “New America” gimmick, Ali hasn’t been pitched anything new to portray. The “New America” idea was apparently scrapped because the higher-ups in the company changed their minds about how successful it would be.
Vince McMahon wanted “something Mustafa Ali would never have done” instead of what was being pursued for Ali. This reportedly led to a “heated argument between the two” and the WWE star hasn’t been attending shows since.
During an interview with Metro in October 2021, Ali mentioned how Vince McMahon directly told him he was, “Too polished, too clean, too nice. I don’t know if you have it in you!’”
“Even pre-pandemic, I was struggling to maintain television presence and I know it was all character-based,” Ali said. “When you pitch a million and one ideas as far as stories, characters, promos, this and that and you always get told that you’re good but then nothing happens, you start pointing the finger at everybody except for you.
“After sitting at home for seven months and then finally coming back to Monday Night RAW, only to pick up a few victories and then to go back to not being on Monday Night RAW and now being stuck on Main Event, you’re kind of scratching your head,” Ali continued. “Like, what have I gotta do? And then you realize, you’ve gotta go ask the hard questions. I went up to Vince McMahon himself and said, ‘What am I missing?’ [He said], ‘Too polished, too clean, too nice, I don’t know if you have it in you!’”
