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WrestleZone spoke with Mansoor about his favorite moments in WWE. Mansoor called a promo with Mustafa Ali his best individual promo segment. Despite admitting he screwed up the ending, he chose it because it changed people’s perception of him.
“During my program with Mustafa Ali, I had a match with Cedric Alexander, who’s awesome. Then after the match, me and Ali were supposed to have a promo exchange. This was the first time I had ever had a live mic in the ring on Monday Night Raw. I had cut some promos for the crowd in Saudi Arabia. This was my first time in front of an American audience speaking live, and I was nervous because I didn’t know how they were going to react to this kid who, for all intents and purposes, is just kind of a foreign star. They were building this foreign show. Plus, they wanted me to speak Arabic, and I’m a little bit of a pessimist.”
Mansoor worried that he might get booed or be on the receiving end of a ‘What?’ chant if he spoke Arabic in front of an American crowd. However, he and Ali cut their promos, and the fans were getting behind him. When it came time for Mansoor to switch from English to Arabic, he accidentally mixed up his words.
Mansoor is proud that he got to change the perception of him
“I’m screaming, and the crowd’s actually coming up. They’re getting hot and they’re getting fired up. And I was like, ‘Oh my God, I have them, I have them! This is great.’ Then it’s time to cut to the Arabic part, and my Arabic is fine. I can read and write, okay. But conversationally, it got very weak over time.
“So I had lines in mind, but they got mixed up. I say the first line great. Then I got my words mixed up, and I was supposed to call Ali a coward, but I ended up calling him a word that is slang for ‘alcoholic’ by accident. So I screamed that at him. And shockingly, the American crowd loves it. They’re like, ‘Yeah! Whatever he said!’ Of course, they don’t know what I actually said. All the Arab fans are going, ‘Oh my God,’ rolling their eyes. But it is what it is. I still went to the back and I remember Shawn Daivari coming up to me and going, ‘You were turning heads when you were cutting that promo. People didn’t know that you could talk like that.’ So I’m proud that I at least got to kind of change that perception of me.”
Despite messing up the line, Mansoor still received praise from his peers. He now sees the silver lining of the situation, noting how he makes clear communication a priority.
“The most direct way you can communicate is with your words. So any time I do get the opportunity to speak to millions of people with my words, I always try to be as specific, as passionate and as particular as possible so I can always communicate the most effectively. People forget it’s not just a wrestling show, it’s a TV show, and we’re playing TV characters. So that aspect is very important.”
“Absurd and surreal in an interesting way”
If that was his favorite promo, Mansoor knew what his favorite segment was. Calling back to his ‘Maximum Male Model’ run, Mansoor said it might not be universally praised, but the group’s ‘tennis fashion collection’ was wacky and offbeat in a way that just worked.
“As far as what my overall favorite segment of all time is. I get it, people hated this, but I gotta give it to the Maximum Male Models tennis fashion collection, because it was so incredibly absurd. It was like a Lynchian moment. Like the fact that in a wrestling show, six minutes would be dedicated to two guys coming out in short shorts and polos, swinging around tennis rackets while tennis balls are stuffed down their pockets. I don’t know, I think that’s sort of absurd and surreal in an interesting way.”
Mansoor also picked his favorite matches in WWE. Claudio Castagnoli was one opponent, and the other, fittingly enough, was Mustafa Ali.
“As far as a match goes, it was so long ago, but I still have to give it, and this was the match of my career — me and Claudio Castagnoli, Cesaro at the time, at Crown Jewel. I think it was 2019. That was like my coming out party. That was the first time anybody had ever seen me in a singles match to a widespread degree. And of course, it’s Claudio. He’s one of the best wrestlers in the world. He was responsible for a lot, if not most of that. But still, people were looking at me different after that match going, okay, this guy can go. I also love the Mustafa match a few years later. That match is near and dear to my heart as well. I’m very proud of both of those matches.”
Matches
Check out some free-to-watch, full-length matches from Mansoor’s career, including the Cedric Alexander match and his promo on Ali, on Peacock/WWE Network. You can also watch extended highlights of Mansoor’s work with both Alexander and Ali below:
Mansoor vs. Mustafa Ali: SmackDown, October 22, 2021
Mansoor vs. Cedric Alexander: WWE Raw, October 18, 2021
Mansoor vs. Mustafa Ali: WWE Raw, July 5, 2021
Mansoor vs. Colby Corino: WWE 205 Live, September 4, 2020
