Ali talks about the rollercoaster of a 2019 he has had.
SmackDown Live star Ali is slated to compete in this year's men's Money In The Bank Ladder match at the Money In The Bank pay-per-view on May 19th. Ali is currently with a plethora of WWE stars on the company's European tour leading into the RAW and SmackDown shows in the United Kingdom next week.
If Ali can grab a hold of the Money In The Bank briefcase, he'll have the opportunity to become WWE Champion and the current holder of that title is Kofi Kingston who filled in for Ali at the Elimination Chamber pay-per-view which led to "Kofi Mania" coming to fruition. Both Ali and Kofi have spoken at great lengths about the fallout from Ali's injury that led to the spot in the Elimination Chamber match opening up. On the road to the Chamber pay-per-view, Ali tallied up a number of injuries that forced him out of the match and one of those injuries occurred when he came out of a match with Randy Orton with his eye swollen shut. During an interview with talkSPORT, Ali spoke about that specific injury that occurred during the Orton match and made it clear that it was not Randy's fault.
“Unfortunately for Randy, a lot of people point the finger at him thinking the black eye was the cause of me missing the Elimination Chamber – that wasn’t the case. I had a series of injuries that were just piling up and unfortunately I had a pretty serious injury after that at a live event. That’s the injury that took me out. The doctors were well aware of the other injuries that I was trying to work through and it was a scenario where I was hanging on by a string." Ali said. "Then I suffered a serious injury two weeks before Elimination Chamber and that’s when the doctor said, ‘There’s no way we can clear you,’ and they did it out of the best interest for my health. I am a father of two amazing kids, I’m a husband – I’ve got to think about them. That’s the scary thing about what we do. It’s just us, being a competitor you want to get out there and go." Ali said. “And I’m pleading with these doctors almost crying like, ‘No, I’m good, don’t take this away from me. I’ve worked my entire life,’ and the doctor actually looked me in the eye and said, ‘You got here once, you’ll get here again. But, right now, I cannot clear you’. So it was a reality I had to accept and yeah, it was very tough watching Kofi [Kingston] go on and do what he did but there’s solace in that in what an amazing person he is. It’s one thing to have something taken away from you, but it’s cool to see someone really deserving get an even better opportunity,” Ali said. “So that was the light in the dark and it will always be a very dark time in my life not knowing what could have been and what that spot – I don’t even want to say that spot – what could have been for me. KofiMania was destiny. It wasn’t an accident, it was meant to happen. I’m ok with that and now I’m working towards making my own opportunity and making my own moment.”
To check out the full interview with Ali, click here, and to get a look at the list of participants in this year's men's and women's Money In The Bank Ladder matches, click here.
