9 Wrestlers AEW Will Sign In 2024
7. Mustafa Ali
Mustafa Ali differs to Dolph Ziggler in that he has not been irrevocably stigmatised as someone who will never become a true headliner.
Ali still has that weird, only-in-WWE selling point, in that he was booked so disgracefully that the lapsed/hardcore audience sympathises with him. The "hacker" was a geezer's laughable attempt at a "state-of-the-art" character, leading RETRIBUTION was a career death sentence, and by the end, he basically played the role of Bo Dallas - the heel who thinks he's a hand-slapping babyface - in NXT.
Fans might not have given up on him entirely. They might still like to see what he can do in AEW and ignore the last however many years of his career, knowing that he was mostly blameless.
Working against him is that his sense of humour can be a bit broad and goofy. Also, does he have a mode beyond "fighting against creative injustice"?
Ultimately, when booked well for a few weeks against Planet's Champion Daniel Bryan in 2019, Ali was inordinately sympathetic and, years after he peaked, his match against GUNTHER at Night of Champions was one of the most overlooked WWE PLE efforts of 2023.
He is an awesome bumper, and an even better self-promoter. He's told the world how good he is so often that he'll likely get the chance to show it next year.