Having put on some 15 pounds of lean muscle in recent months, wrestling star Mustafa Ali is now preparing for his newest World Wrestling Entertainment challenge. Next week, the Illinois wrestler will face off against Tyler Bate on the July 4th episode of WWE’s Next Generation (NXT).
After losing a Night of Champions battle against Intercontinental Champion Gunther at the Jeddah Superdome in Saudi Arabia, Ali now has his back against the wall. His challenge of Bate is high stakes, as their fight will be a “Loser Leaves NXT” battle.
From working the graveyard shift at the Chicago Police Department to WWE stardom
Ali, real name Adeel Alam, made his professional wrestling debut in 2003, just before he turned 17. For the first six years of his professional wrestling career, he wore a mask, hiding his Muslim identity due to prejudices. He recalls how, back then, “every single person in the Chicago independent scene said, ‘You’ve got to be a bad guy. You’re a Muslim. We’re gonna make money. We’re gonna call you Sheik Abdullah or something. You’re gonna wear a turban’.”
“I was so terrified of pushing that biased agenda that I refused to do it,” said Ali. “I put on a mask and tried to pass myself off as a luchador” (a Mexican wrestler). While wrestling during the day, he was also working night shifts in his South Chicago neighborhood as a police officer, which he continued for four years.
He remembers how “there were days I’d wrestle at 9 o’clock, and afterward, I often didn’t shower and would just throw on sweatpants. I had my police gear in the car and would rush to get to the station by 10:30, clean myself off as best I could, and be ready for my shift by 10:59.”
“It sucked, man,” he says, looking back at those challenging days. After working in various wrestling promotions, including Dreamwave, and appearing in others like National Wrestling Alliance, Ali had a life-changing opportunity in 2016, when he participated in WWE’s Cruiserweight Classic tournament, becoming the first person of Pakistani origin to compete in WWE.
Ali is the first Pakistani wrestler to compete in the WWE, though he does not promote it
That WWE feat was a dream come true for Ali, who grew up wanting to become a major wrestler and idolizing the likes of Bret ‘The Hitman’ Hart, Eddie Guerrero, Rey Mysterio, Hardy Boyz, Chris Jericho, and Hayabusa.
The son of a Pakistani father from Karachi and an Indian mother from New Delhi, Ali does not choose to highlight his nationality, however, saying that “division does not justice.”
In fact, when his Pakistani fans criticized Ali for not displaying the flag of Pakistan, Ali remarked how he did not care all that much for nationality, but “for unity.”
Now a free agent and bigger, Ali is ready for whatever is next
Earlier this year, Ali found himself a free agent in WWE after being overlooked by both RAW and SmackDown in the draft. Ali does not let that or his recent loss in the title match against Gunther get to him, though.
When asked about what brought him to WWE’s NXT division, he proclaimed, “I mean, I’m free agent Ali, baby. That means I can show up wherever I want.”
“And now, the pen is in my hand. Now I’m the one writing the story, and the next chapter that I’m gonna write is called ‘Mustafa Ali finally becomes a champion’.”
