During a recent interview with talkSPORT, WWE superstar Ali spoke about a series of topics as he continues to rise up through the ranks of WWE. Ali, formerly known as Mustafa Ali, was hyping WWE’s return to the United Kingdom this month.
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On Daniel Bryan helping him get to the main roster:
“I’ll never know the full story because Daniel [Bryan] is not the type of guy that would put his hat on anything. That’s the kind of guy he is. But, the way it went down was I showed up to TV one day and I was told ‘Hey, don’t get your hopes up, it’s a one time deal, but you’re working Daniel Bryan on SmackDown. It’s just to highlight you and the 205 Live division, it’s a one-time deal. It’s an opportunity, but don’t get any ideas! You’re not getting moved to SmackDown’.
“So we went out there and had this once in a lifetime – I thought – match with Daniel Bryan and I came back, it was a positive reception and what not, but it wasn’t until the following week till I came back to TV that I was told ‘Hey, we’ve made the decision to move you over to SmackDown, you’re going to be a full-time member and you’re in the main event of the night,’ so it was a lot to take in in two weeks. Thinking that you kind of have this opportunity to show people what you’re made of, to ‘OK, not only do we want to see what you’re capable of but we’re also putting you in the mix’.
On Randy Orton injuring him:
“Unfortunately for Randy, a lot of people point the finger at him thinking the black eye was the cause of me missing the Elimination Chamber – that wasn’t the case. I had a series of injuries that were just piling up and unfortunately I had a pretty serious injury after that at a live event. That’s the injury that took me out. The doctors were well aware of the other injuries that I was trying to work through and it was a scenario where I was hanging on by a string. Then I suffered a serious injury two weeks before Elimination Chamber and that’s when the doctor said ‘there’s no way we can clear you,’ and they did it out of the best interest for my health. I am a father of two amazing kids, I’m a husband – I’ve got to think about them. That’s the scary thing about what we do.”
On turning heel in the future:
“I do believe, honestly, that turning heel would concern me in regards to what I would be saying,” Ali said. “I never have a problem telling the truth and sometimes it’s very easy to tell the truth and people don’t like it then boom, you’re a bad guy! I’ve done that role tastefully before I came to WWE and obviously, I’m still a Muslim-American just giving people the truth and they don’t like it. But right now, I think it’s undeniable from my prespective the impact that I’m having by being this positive – I don’t want to call it Muslim role model – but positive figure that happens to be Muslim and that’s the key about it.”
