5 Ups 8 Downs From WWE Raw (Oct 19)

2. A Career(-Killing) Move For Ali

Mustafa Ali RETRIBUTION
WWE

When it was revealed that Mustafa Ali was actually the leader of RETRIBUTION, it was hard to peg how to feel about it.

This could be an opportunity for him to showcase his leadership talents and do something other than being an undersized athlete with a big heart. Or it could spell doom as he leads a faction that has been widely ridiculed almost since its inception.

Monday, we got our potential answer: DUD.

After RETRIBUTION inexplicably lost clean in an 8-man tag match to the Hurt Business, the Fiend returned to wipe out the entire quartet. Perhaps the worst part was watching Ali, who had cowered from Bobby Lashley just moments earlier, cower and try to run from the Fiend. The leader of this “dominant” faction was reduced to a cowardly heel in less than two weeks.

And now his group has lost their first match under him, and then got obliterated by one person. Ali is leading a team of jokes. How this is supposed to be a step up from being Apollo Crews’ running buddy is beyond anyone’s guess.

Advertisement
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.