3 Ups & 8 Downs From WWE Raw (Oct 11)

7. Loser Tag Team Breaks Up

Mustafa Ali Mansoor
WWE.com

Weeks of diminished screentime has left fans trying to fill in the gaps – if they cared – of the Mustafa Ali/Mansoor story.

The duo started off with an interesting premise: Ali offered to teach Mansoor several hard lessons about wrestling, and they finally teamed up. But then something happened: They started losing. A lot. And worse, Ali has been the one taking all the pinfalls.

Yes, there’s allegedly a story here, but it hasn’t been told. The announcers are always “switching gears” to something else, and the team doesn’t get any promo time to explain things. So when Ali finally grew weary and shoved Mansoor down after a loss in less than two minutes to the Hurt Business, we had to wait.

Later on, Ali confronted, then jumped, Mansoor backstage, beating his (former) partner down. So to sum up, Ali and Mansoor teamed up so Ali could show the rookie the ropes, lost a lot, got mad and beat up the kid. The end.

That is not exactly a compelling story. But Mansoor now has his traditional match at Crown Jewel.

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Contributor
Contributor

Scott is a former journalist and longtime wrestling fan who was smart enough to abandon WCW during the Monday Night Wars the same time as the Radicalz. He fortunately became a fan in time for WrestleMania III and came back as a fan after a long high school hiatus before WM XIV. Monday nights in the Carlson household are reserved for viewing Raw -- for better or worse.