Mustafa Ali recalls a edited segment with Mike Bailey.
Ali and Bailey were involved in a heated feud in TNA throughout the summer, prompting the rivalry to come to its natural conclusion at the Slammiversary event in July. As of publish time, this was Ali's last match in TNA, as he lost the X-Division Championship to Bailey.
While chatting with Chris Van Vliet for a new interview, Mustafa Ali recalled filming a segment with Mike Bailey where he claimed that Bailey tried to assassinate him.
“In TNA, I had a feud going on with Mike Bailey. Weeks, and I’m talking weeks before a real life event happened, we came up with this idea where after I’d been torturing Mike Bailey for weeks, I’m beating up his friends and stuff like that. I’m pulling up into the arena in an SUV and I have a campaign manager with me, Campaign Singh. I’m like, ‘These idiot voters, they love me, watch this.’ He’s like, ‘Sir, I don’t think that’s a good’ — ‘Shut up, they love me.’ We have all these fans [cheering] and I’m shaking their hand. As I’m shaking their hand, appears Mike Bailey within this crowd. Mike Bailey grabs him by the throat, he’s trying to pull me out of the SUV, secret service jumps on him and I’m like, ‘Drive, drive, drive.’ We drive away, later that night in a promo, I say, ‘Mike Bailey tried to attack me in what the public has deemed an assassination attempt.’"
Coincidentally, this segment was set to air on TNA television on the same week that attempted assassination of Donald Trump took place. As a result, Ali made the call to edit that part of the segment out of the show.
"We tape it. The week that’s going to go live, which is a Thursday, earlier that week, the incident happens with Trump, the assassination attempt. So I’m sitting watching this, ‘Oh no.’ Some people had nothing to do with it, right? A genuine coincidence. So I have to text TNA like, ‘Guys, I don’t—’ because some people are gonna think we’re parodying it or making fun of it. No matter how you feel about someone, death is death. I personally don’t wish death upon anybody. So, I made the call like, ‘Hey, I think we should edit this.’ We ended up editing that part out, you know? It just goes to show you the volatile and sensitive nature of this character. I’ve just got to evaluate it and see if it’s something I want to continue doing long-term because of an incident like that.”
Elsewhere in the interview, Ali commented on the idea of possibly returning to WWE. Check out his full comments on the matter by clicking here.
Ali last wrestled on December 1, facing and defeating Kevin Knight at a duel PROGRESS/DEFY event.
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