Mustafa Ali was seconds away from grabbing the briefcase at Money in the Bank 2019 when Brock Lesnar's music hit.
A frozen Ali sat on the ladder as Lesnar came to the ring, tipped over the ladder, and took the briefcase for himself.
“We got nothing other than ‘you’re in the match’ the week-of [the MITB match]. Day-of, I’m winning it! Man, this is my moment, this is everything I’ve been working for, I can’t believe it, this is awesome," Ali told Alex McCarthy of TalkSPORT. "Then the match is about to start, so the entrances have started. I may be wrong about this, but Baron Corbin is making his entrance and I’m soon to be making my entrance, and that’s when I get pulled that I have to go see the boss. [Vince says] ‘This is what I want. Grab the briefcase. Shock. Then you’re frozen. This is what I want.’ And you have to realise, right before you’re about to go out through the curtain is not the time to argue. You’re getting a direct order about what is to be expected of you. I know some people say ‘why didn’t you just grab the briefcase!’ [laughs]. I was more concerned with grabbing my check that week! So I grabbed my check."
Ali continued by saying, "At the end of the day, it’s not my show. The guy who writes this, who owns this, who decides what happens told me specific instructions and I said ‘OK, not a problem boss.’ And I went out there and did exactly what I was asked to do. At the end of the day, like, hey, it worked right? People are still talking about that moment years later. Everyone’s sad about it, but guys, we got Brock listening to the briefcase like a boombox and dancing – I gave you that gift! [laughs].”
Ali is currently aligned with Mansoor on WWE Raw. He is not currently scheduled to compete at WWE SummerSlam.
Fightful will have live coverage of WWE SummerSlam beginning at 7 p.m. ET on Saturday.
