Mustafa Ali explains why his “hacker” storyline in WWE was dropped

During an interview with The Wrestling Classic, former WWE star Mustafa Ali explained why his “hacker” storyline from 2020 was dropped…

“The only actual creative plan that I knew about (as ‘The Hacker’) was that the first program, the first feud was gonna be me and Dolph Ziggler. Dolph was doing this romance story with Mandy Sacs and Otis and then there was gonna be a WrestleMania blow-off, and the idea that I leak footage, or somehow I inform Mandy that Dolph’s intentions aren’t true and Sonya’s in on it, yada, yada. So that’s as far as that went. They had the ‘Mania match, I did the Hacker reveal and then the character just died.

The reason the character died is because there was a dynamic power shift at the time where Raw had its own writer and SmackDown had its own writer. I think it was Paul Heyman and Bruce Prichard, and there was some sort of power struggle with that and ultimately, the character suffered because of that. I believe both shows wanted the character, and there was like a fight over it… I suffer from being too popular, legit (he joked).” (quote courtesy of Andrew Thompson)

Later in 2020, Ali formed the Retribution faction. Click here for his thoughts on the group.