Mustafa Ali pitched his hacker gimmick two years before WWE decided to use it.
Ali has had a rough go of it over the last few years in WWE. While there have been attempts to bring him onto television, the ball has been always been fumbled for Ali’s big moment. This could be attributed to him requesting his release from the company in January of 2022.
Last month, Ali confirmed that he had been released by the company at long last. Prior to his release, Ali was scheduled to challenge Dominik Mysterio for the NXT North American Championship at No Mercy.
During his time in WWE, Ali would run with a hacker gimmick that was shortlived, despite a lengthy time of Ali wanting to bring the gimmick to life.
During an interview with Fightful, Sami Callihan shared how Ali asked for his blessing to pitch the gimmick to WWE two full years before they ever used it.
“Not really. IMPACT kind of let me have free reign to do it how I wanted to do it, but I think it was past its prime at that point. Specifically because right when I started doing it, Ali started doing it in WWE. Nothing against Ali, great dude. Hope he makes billions of dollars. When I left WWE, he had sent me a message. ‘Hey, man. Do you mind if I pitch the hacker gimmick since you’re gone?’ ‘No, please, do it,’ and that was like two years before he ended up doing it. Then I debut it, two weeks later they debut it. That’s terrible timing. Absolutely terrible.,”
Sami Callihan
We exclusively reported that Callihan was backstage at last night’s AEW Collision.
Ali has been linked with possibly making his way to IMPACT Wrestling.
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