Mustafa Ali had many ambitious plans for the Retribution stable in WWE, but unfortunately nothing legitimate materialized and the group was downsized to only Mace (Mason Madden) and T-Bar (Dijak) as the sole members of the team.
“It’s one of the most made fun of stable sin the history of wrestling, but I know the comedy and the cringiness from it was never from us,” Ali explained during an interview with Denise Salcedo, defending Retribution from its critics. “I assure you; Shane Throne wasn’t like: ‘Hey! I’d love to be called ‘Slapjack’ and put on a grotesque mask!’ You know?”
Ali often corrects people who use elements of the stable to make light of them and looks back on the group as an opportunity.
“We were booked weekly on Monday Night RAW, we had multiple talking segments…We got beat up a lot, but we were all over the show,” he pointed out. He further claimed that they once had five television segments in one show, and were thoroughly enjoying the way they had to run back and forth all night long.
Over the years, Mustafa Ali has continued to defend the idea of the stable during interviews, explaining that it was actually never his brainchild to begin with, but something he just ended up loving and adopting.
“At the end of the day, with Retribution, I fought and tried as hard as I possibly could to make the group work,” he admitted, though plenty still doesn’t make sense to him, like why they wore masks or had the names they did. Despite this, Ali maintains that he is “grateful” for that chapter of his career, as he got an opportunity to run with something, but that he still wishes WWE actually let him do something.
“It put me in the leadership position, I protect the people that were in the group as much as I can, I try to be fair, and honest, and transparent,” he concluded.
If you use any quotes from this article, please credit Denise Salcedo and provide a h/t to Wrestling Inc. for the transcription.
