5 Ups & 7 Downs From WWE Elimination Chamber 2021

4. Gang Of Doofuses

Mustafa Ali
WWE.com

In WWE, there’s the never-ending world of one step forward, one step back… also known as 50/50, just to keep us from getting invested in wrestlers or storylines. It’s almost as if they want fans to be disillusioned.

One of the few mid-card storylines that actually has real history and could work if it was told well is Mustafa Ali versus Kofi Kingston. Even though RETRIBUTION has been horribly booked, igniting this feud on the back of a 2-year-old situation – Kingston replaced an injured Ali at Elimination Chamber, which then launched KofiMania – added some gravity to what could just be a throwaway match.

But WWE can’t help themselves. They’ve booked Ali to lose to Kofi’s running buddy Xavier Woods – rather than let Mustafa get the win and be strong as WrestleMania looms – and then inserted him into a last-minute Fatal Four-way match on Sunday for a United States Championship match… and had him get pinned.

Yup, Ali got distracted by his own men and then got rolled up by John Morrison. So despite being the only wrestler with seconds at ringside, Ali not only didn’t win, he took the pinfall like a chump.

Just pathetic.

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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.