Report: Reason WWE Are Booking Mustafa Ali & Baron Corbin On NXT Revealed

WWE free agents Mustafa Ali and Baron Corbin have been busy over the past couple of weeks, having split their time between the main roster and NXT.

Corbin is locked in a programme with Cameron Grimes on SmackDown but he also looks set to challenge for the NXT Title soon. The former United States Champion will take on Ilja Dragunov next week first, though. Mustafa Ali, meanwhile, defeated Joe Gacy on the June 6 edition of NXT, only a couple of weeks after he failed to capture the Intercontinental Championship from GUNTHER at Night of Champions.

Ali and Corbin went undrafted in the latest WWE Draft, making them free agents, and Fightful Select has reported that plans for them to work NXT meant the two talents weren't selected by Raw or SmackDown. A source also told Fightful: "Despite a lot of things from the previous regime that made that cynicism around the free agent tags understandable, there was more of a plan for them this time."

Ali and Corbin were chosen to work NXT to increase interest in the developmental brand and to "help refresh" the main roster wrestlers. WWE will also use Ali and Corbin to assess the NXT talents they are working with and to provide the developmental talents with more experience as Corbin and Ali have wrestled on WWE TV for some time.

Several NXT talents also specifically asked to work with Mustafa Ali and the former RETRIBUTION leader was more than happy to head to NXT.