Assessing The Futures Of 10 WWE Stars Who Didn’t Make Royal Rumble 2020 Cut

4. Mustafa Ali

What's missing from Mustafa Ali's make-up that's stopping WWE from utilising him better? He can cut solid promos, he can fly around the ring with the best of them, he can sell his arse off for bigger guys and he receives a polite amount of applause from an audience who are rapidly losing faith due to creative's own apathy.

It must be slightly worrying for Ali that he's been relegated to working dark matches against fellow stragglers like Apollo Crews before SmackDown even airs. On top of that, Mustafa hasn't appeared on TV for a few weeks now, and he didn't have a storyline to get stuck into when he was. Things have fallen off a cliff since early-2019.

Missing the Rumble was another hammer blow.

Ali has André The Giant Memorial Battle Royal entrant at WrestleMania 36 written all over him. That, annoyingly, isn't a spot worthy of someone who has matched WWE's demands to show more personality (again, those inspirational promo vignettes were killer), nor does it represent progress for the ex-Cruiserweight.