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 fondly remembers watching WrestleMania III, IV, V and VI and Saturday Night's Main Event, came back to wrestling during the Attitude Era, and has been a consumer of sports entertainment since then. He's written for WhatCulture for more than a decade, establishing the Ups and Downs articles for WWE Raw and WWE PPVs/PLEs and composing pieces on a variety of topics.