10 Beloved Wrestlers FIRED By WWE
3. Mustafa Ali
"Beloved" might scan as hyperbole in the case of Mustafa Ali, given that, by the end of his WWE career, he generated no reaction from the audience.
He was booked by a total geek, so it wasn't a reflection of his immense and untapped talent, but because under the Triple H era fans were otherwise energised by the product, the old atmosphere of defiance and protest just did not exist. Ali was left to flounder as fans just sat on their hands and waited for the stars to come out. Even before Triple H took over, this attitude had shifted. The protest voters switched to AEW.
The fans who liked Ali however loved him. He boasted a very strong online following. They remembered his incredible, short-lived rivalry with Daniel Bryan. They sympathised with his atrocious, fitful booking - which was somehow infinitely better than that which was pitched but never made it to television.
They appreciated his painstaking efforts to make something of the 205 Live brand, which was practically heartbreaking in retrospect. He worked at a frantic PWG-style pace against a bleak 2023 ROH backdrop.
Ali, after requesting his release countless times when he had the buzz to perhaps capitalise on it, was eventually fired on September 1, 2023.