Daniel Bryan's words may have been the words that got Mustafa Ali called up to the main roster.
The former "Heart Of 205 Live" Mustafa Ali burst onto the main roster and made an immediate impact as he pinned the WWE Champion Daniel Bryan. Ali would go on to ride a wave of momentum until he was forced to step away from in-ring competition for a few weeks due to a number of injuries that he complied during his time on the main roster. Ali challenged for the WWE Championship two weeks ago at Fastlane in a Triple-Threat match along with Kevin Owens.
Mustafa Ali stated during his appearance on Chris Jericho's Talk Is Jericho podcast that he believes Daniel Bryan played a role in him getting called up to the main roster but Bryan well never admit it. Former WWE creative writer Kazeem Famuyide shed some light on Ali's thoughts when he joined the 'Wrassle Rap' podcast and recalled a creative meeting when Daniel Bryan came in the room and expressed that there is a spot for a fresh, young babyface on the SmackDown roster and Famuyide believes that is how the decision to bring Mustafa Ali up to the main roster came to be.
“People would come and sit in creative sometimes. I’ll tell you one story, and I was still pretty new then, and he did it in jest but he meant it. We’re sitting in the writers room and Daniel Bryan just storms down the hallway and he’s walking and he’s walking and he kicks the door open, and he walks in and he was like, ‘Hey! We need, a hot, young, babyface! Right now!’ and I was like huh? He’s like, ‘The youngest babyface you have is pushing 40-something years old. How’s this gonna work?’ And he came in joking but he was dead ass, and in a roundabout way, I think that’s how we got to Mustafa Ali where it was like, he was a pure, white-meat baby-face on 205 Live that got real emotion, that could fu*king sell agony and Vince is so huge on that like, ‘You gotta bring em’ in. If you can fight from underneath, oh God. That’s such an advantage because they gotta see that you’re fighting and the agony and pain and the face’. So when you finally overcome, they’re with you and that’s the genius of Vince [because] he understands the dynamics of good versus evil, and fighting against the odds, and underdogs and he might beat it to a pulp sometimes." Famuyide continued, "Like maybe sometimes, the babyface gets beat up too fuc*ing much but there’s one thing that these motherf*ckers do not miss on, is that those big fu*king baby-face moments. Nobody remembers the months and months leading up to WrestleMania 30 that Daniel Bryan got sh*ted on. All people remember, is him standing at WrestleMania 30 with those two belts pumping yes, yes, yes, yes and God dammit, when it comes to making those type of moments, that motherf*cker doesn’t fuc*ing miss.”
WrestleMania 35 is three weeks away and to see the updated match card for the event, head over to Fightful's "events page".
If the quote in this article is used, please credit the 'Wrassle Rap' podcast with an H/T to Fightful for the transcription.
