Mustafa Ali has revealed that his recent feud with Ricochet on Main Event came to life after he pitched the idea directly to Vince McMahon.
After the demise of RETRIBUTION, Ali was left somewhat rudderless. While T-BAR and MACE remain a team on RAW, Mia Yim, aka RECKONING and Shane Thorne aka SLAPJACK have disappeared from television completely. Yim had recently been due to debut on SmackDown but it yet to appear.
Seemingly with no new programmes on the horizon, Ali has now detailed how he went directly to Vince McMahon to lay out his ideas for a feud with Ricochet.
Speaking to Sean Waltman on his Pro Wrestling 4 Life podcast, Ali explained how he pitched the programme straight to the WWE Chairman.
“The Main Event stuff happened because, after the fallout with RETRIBUTION, which was kind of like, you know, again, plans changed with that. I’m kind of sitting there for a few weeks realizing they don’t really know where to put me and the request was simple. I just knocked on Vince’s office and said, ‘Hey, if you don’t have something for me right now, I get it. I’m the type of talent where if I don’t use it, I’m gonna lose it. You got to get me in the ring. I need to perform. Can I just have Ricochet for four weeks on Main Event?’ [Vince] goes, ‘What’s the story?’”
Ali answered, “‘That’s it. Doesn’t need to be anything elaborate. We don’t need any gimmick matches. I go in, you know me, boss, we will carry it. We’ll do all our own promos. It wasn’t like, ‘Sure.’ It was like, ‘Okay, we’ll see.’ The first match happened. Then the second match happened And now the third match happened. Maybe there’s a fourth match coming, we’ll see.”
Ali continued, saying that the programme was his way of making sure people didn’t forget who he was.
“It was one of the things where we went and just did it ourselves and, as much love as the matches are getting, I think the promos that we’re doing on our own are getting just as much, if not more, maybe. It’s this kind of thing where I just wanted to, ‘Oh, y’all forgot about it for a sec, let me remind you real quick. Put me in the ring and you guys will go, ‘wow.’ Give me a microphone or a camera and you will go, ‘wow.’ That’s what it is sometimes, man. There’s so much content that comes out. So you have to be able to constantly engage the audience and remind them because once you’re not in the mix, man, you guys will go, ‘We love Ali,’ but after a while, if Ali’s not on your screen. If I’m not on Twitter or Instagram. You’re gonna forget about me. It’s just natural. So that was just my way of reminding people just who the hell I am.”
During the pair’s four-match series, Richochet has picked up two victories to Ali’s one. The most recent coming in a Two Out Of Three Falls Match. The third match between the duo ended in a double count out.
In recent weeks Ricochet has returned to Monday Night RAW catching the attention of United States Champion Sheamus.