Mustafa Ali Explains How His TNA International Title Run Helped Legitimize the Belt

During a recent interview with Fightful’s Sean Ross Sapp, TNA Wrestling star Mustafa Ali spoke about his run as TNA International Champion and how his reign helped legitimize the title. Below are some highlights from Fightful:

Mustafa Ali on His Run as TNA International Champion

“Man, not to make it seem like I was trying to this righteous thing, but the title wasn’t legitimate in my eyes. I know some people said, ‘Oh, you’re knocking the former champions.’ Well, okay. It is what it is. I won the championship in April, and I want to say within two weeks, it was scheduled to be defended in ten different countries. No one on the roster did it before me; no one’s on the roster doing it now. That’s just me making my mind up. If this is going to be called the International Championship, it needs to be defended internationally. We did all over the place; we did Paris, Berlin, Tijuana, a bunch of spots in Canada.”

On Defending the Title All Over the World

I just came back from Costa Rica; I’m going to Santiago, Chile this weekend. We have defenses scheduled all over. Then, Jason Hotch had to ruin the whole damn thing. But yeah, very proud of that. It legitimized the championship, and it gave me an opportunity to kind of see all this talent from all over the world and be able to provide whatever guidance or insight into that. Then, even to recommend a few people over to TNA management to take a look. It’s benefited TNA in the sense of it’s legitimized not only the championship, but we’re able to get eyes on worldwide talent.”

Mustafa Ali lost the title to Jason Hotch late last month on TNA iMPACT! Ali held the title for 110 days.