Mustafa Ali Says His Campaign Video Was Inspired by Cody Rhodes' Infamous List

Mustafa Ali was released from WWE back in September 2023, and when he became an official free agent, he released a global campaign tour video. The video highlighted his upcoming appearances at other promotions, as well as his dream opponents.

Ali talked about his campaign video and the inspiration behind it while speaking on the Straight Talk Wrestling podcast. The former WWE star revealed that it was Cody Rhodes’ infamous list that inspired him for the campaign video.

Ali started off by saying that he is surprised by how quickly he was able to see the successful results of such a risky move. While something like this would usually take a lot of time, Ali revealed he was contacted by multiple promotors telling him that “they haven’t had someone move tickets and have these sell-out crowds since a Cody Rhodes.”

“So to have that comparison and look where he’s at. Literally the top of the business, heading into WrestleMania, the talk of the industry and deservingly so and Cody was a guy that I take a lot of inspiration from and what I mean by that is what set this all up was the launch of my campaign video which was released on December 21.”

Ali revealed that the reaction to Cody Rhodes’ list when he left WWE left people asking where they could see all these dream matches that Rhodes mentioned. The former Retribution member took inspiration from that, and ran with it for his video. Fortunately for him, he got a similar reaction from fans.

“The concept behind it was who was the last guy that really made that impact of like, what’s gonna happen? And this is when Cody Rhodes released the list and I remember everyone was like, ‘Oh my God, these dream matches, but where? And how? How are we gonna see them?’ And I go, ‘What’s the 2024 Mustafa Ali version of the list?’

So the campaign video came about, calling out guys like Will Ospreay and ‘Speedball’ Mike Bailey and (El Hijo del) Vikingo and (Matt) Cardona and all these notable names. And what happened is it became a frenzy of people wondering how is this gonna go and where is he gonna go? Where is this gonna happen? And it’s happening, it’s happening so a marketing campaign well done.”

Since his release, Mustafa Ali has made appearances for promotions such as New Japan Pro Wrestling, and has drawn interest from top promotions.  

Ali is also the current X-Division Champion in TNA Wrestling, and his career is on a high. However, despite being a title holder, he is reportedly not under a contract for the promotion. You can read more about that here.