More on Mustafa Ali’s Release & Reason for Main Roster Talent Releases

As noted before, WWE released around twenty two known talents from their main roster and NXT developmental system on Thursday. Among those released included Mustafa Ali who was working in WWE’s NXT brand at the time.

Dave Meltzer reported in this week’s Wrestling Observer Newsletter that his sources stated that WWE officials made the decision to include Ali in Thursday’s batch of talent releases due to them not seeing any potential future usage of him on the main roster and he was making main roster type money while on their NXT brand.

Meltzer reported that Ali’s release very likely was a late decision due to how he had been scheduled to compete against Dominik Mysterio for the NXT North American Championship at next Saturday’s NXT No Mercy event and had also been scheduled to make an appearance at this Monday’s RAW show. Another factor pointing to his release being a late decision involves NXT officials not being given the time to let his current North American title feud storyline play out or even be allowed to wait a week to write him out of it.

In regards to main roster talent releases, Meltzer reported that the key to their releases involved those talents making main roster money but were not being used on main roster shows nor did WWE officials have any creative plans to use them in the future. One WWE official spoken to reportedly stated that “It’s time in vs. how much money you are paid vs. return on investment” in regards to WWE’s mentality for those releases.

Meltzer also reported that all of the talent who were released who had been under a main roster contract have 90-day non-competes as part of the terms for their releases meaning they will only officially be able to work elsewhere starting on December 20th.