Mustafa Ali Was Scheduled To Win NXT North American Championship Prior To WWE Release

Mustafa Ali was set to win the NXT North American Championship at NXT No Mercy prior to his release.

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.

Fightful Select now reports that prior to his release, the plan was for Ali to capture the NXT North American Championship at No Mercy.

Trick Williams is the new NXT North American Champion after defeating Dominik Mysterio at NXT No Mercy, however, that wasn’t the original plan. There were some incorrect reports stating that Dominik was originally scheduled to retain over Mustafa Ali. Actually, Mustafa Ali was supposed to win the North American Championship prior to his release. This is one of the reasons why NXT higher ups stated to us they were frustrated by the call to cut him. Dominik Mysterio was always slated to retain the NXT North American Title over Dragon Lee on the September 25 episode of WWE Raw, but sources with knowledge of the situation told us that the original creative called for Mustafa Ali to cost Dragon Lee the match. This would have played off of Ali’s teases to appear on WWE Raw. After that, a triple threat match for the title would have been set for NXT No Mercy where Mustafa Ali would win the North American title. How things would have worked from that point aren’t clear, but Shawn Michaels, Mustafa Ali and NXT creative had tentative plans for Ali on the brand into March of 2024.

Fightful Select

Trick Williams won a fatal four way match on this week’s NXT to decide a new challenger for Dominik’s North American Championship. He would go onto defeat Dominik for the championship at NXT No Mercy this past weekend.

Ali has been linked with possibly making his way to IMPACT Wrestling.

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