Former WWE talent Mustafa Ali has revealed why his much-talked-about “hacker” persona was abruptly dropped just as it started gaining attention in 2020.

In a recent interview with The Wrestling Classic, Ali spoke openly about the original plans behind the character and what led to its sudden disappearance from WWE programming. He explained that the storyline was originally designed to lead into a WrestleMania feud with Dolph Ziggler, who was then involved in a romantic storyline with Mandy Rose and Otis. The hacker character was set to reveal footage exposing Ziggler’s deceit, showing that Sonya Deville was in on the manipulation.

However, things quickly fell apart behind the scenes.

“The only actual creative plan that I knew about (as ‘The Hacker’) was that the first program, the first feud was gonna be me and Dolph Ziggler. Dolph was doing this romance story with Mandy Sacs and Otis and then there was gonna be a WrestleMania blow-off, and the idea that I leak footage, or somehow I inform Mandy that Dolph’s intentions aren’t true and Sonya’s in on it, yada, yada. So that’s as far as that went. They had the ‘Mania match, I did the Hacker reveal and then the character just died.”

Ali said that backstage politics played a major role in the character’s downfall. A behind-the-scenes battle for creative control between Raw and SmackDown at the time, involving Paul Heyman and Bruce Prichard, ultimately caused the storyline to be scrapped.

“The reason the character died is because there was a dynamic power shift at the time where Raw had its own writer and SmackDown had its own writer. I think it was Paul Heyman and Bruce Prichard, and there was some sort of power struggle with that and ultimately, the character suffered because of that. I believe both shows wanted the character, and there was like a fight over it… I suffer from being too popular, legit (he joked).”