Fans were captivated by random drop-ins from the SmackDown mystery hacker, but those visits suddenly stopped. Many pegged Mustafa Ali as the one behind those cryptic promos, and they were right.
Ali was randomly, and quietly moved over to Raw from Friday Night SmackDown. Today it was discovered that he is back on the blue brand.
Ringside News has learned that Mustafa Ali was moved over to Raw at his request. We were told by a current WWE writer close to the situation that Ali wanted to be switched brands because “he was tired of being ignored by Bruce (Prichard) and Ed (Koskey).”
Mustafa Ali went to Vince McMahon and asked to be switched over to Raw because at the time, under Paul Heyman, Raw was building to the future with new stars. According to our source, Vince McMahon then rejected every idea for Ali’s hacker storyline that Heyman and the Raw creative team pitched to him.
It was described to us as Mustafa Ali, who is well liked by the roster, being “stuck in limbo.” Vince McMahon’s new philosophy of not waiting to build new Superstars and only pushing those who are already established did not play to Mustafa Ali’s favor either.