WWE RAW Season Premiere Spoiler: MAJOR Storyline Payoff Tonight?

Will the long-awaited conclusion of one of 2020's biggest angles feature?

Mustafa Ali RETRIBUTION
WWE

WWE Raw's 'Season Premiere' may tonight finally reveal that Mustafa Ali was indeed the SmackDown hacker earlier this year.

The news was broken by Fightful Select, who noted that early editions of the evening's script included the new Retribution leader cutting a promo confirming that he was behind the strange angle that very briefly dominated proceedings on the blue brand earlier this year.

Morphing from a figure of fun to significant storyline device, the hacker at first caused glitches to the picture quality, before revealing that they'd stationed cameras all over the buildings to capture superstars unaware. This all came to a head shortly before WrestleMania when, from an unknown location in front of a series of monitors, the hacker revealed converstations between Sonya Deville and Dolph Ziggler designed to ruin Mandy Rose's relationship with Otis.

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The gimmick was seemingly dropped shortly after the 'Show Of Shows', but attention moved back to it following Ali's heel turn two weeks ago. He'd been long rumoured to be the one behind the role, in an act of revenge for all the poor treatment he'd received on SmackDown, with the Retribution position echoing those same beats.

Plans are always subject to change, but this would at very least tie up a major loose end from the last several months, and add a bit of weight to Retribution as a longer term idea rather than the hotshot moment it first appeared as.

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Michael is a writer, editor, podcaster and presenter for WhatCulture Wrestling, and has been with the organisation nearly 8 years. He primarily produces written, audio and video content on WWE and AEW, but also provides knowledge and insights on all aspects of the wrestling industry thanks to a passion for it dating back over 35 years. As one third of "The Dadley Boyz" Michael has contributed to the huge rise in popularity of the WhatCulture Wrestling Podcast and its accompanying YouTube channel, earning it top spot in the UK's wrestling podcast charts with well over 62,000,000 total downloads. He has been featured as a wrestling analyst for the Tampa Bay Times, GRAPPL, GCP, Poisonrana and Sports Guys Talking Wrestling, and has covered milestone events in New York, Dallas, Las Vegas, Philadelphia, London and Cardiff. Michael's background in media stretches beyond wrestling coverage, with a degree in Journalism from the University Of Sunderland (2:1) and a series of published articles in sports, music and culture magazines The Crack, A Love Supreme and Pilot. When not offering his voice up for daily wrestling podcasts, he can be found losing it singing far too loud watching his favourite bands play live. Follow him on X/Twitter - @MichaelHamflett