38-year-old star pays tribute to 7-year-old rivalry with Cedric Alexander following sudden WWE exit

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Cedric Alexander's WWE release came as quite a shock, although it shouldn't be considering his status with the company for the longest time. One of his great rivals paid tribute to him.

Cedric Alexander's last few years in WWE were quite underwhelming. The peak of his run came in two different instances - one when he was the WWE Cruiserweight Champion in NXT, beating Mustafa Ali at WrestleMania 34, while the second was when he was a part of The Hurt Business in 2020 and became one-half of the RAW Tag Team Champions. From there, things went downhill for the star.

Mustafa Ali, one of his great WWE rivals, paid tribute on Instagram to their WrestleMania match seven years ago and wrote "heart and soul forever" - as they were considered the heart and soul of 205 Live, the former show for the cruiserweights.

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Of course, the handling of the WWE Cruiserweight division certainly left a lot to be desired as 205 Live was eventually shelved and the Cruiserweight Title was merged with the NXT North American Championship. Carmelo Hayes is officially the last champion of that lineage.

It's going to be interesting to see what Cedric Alexander does in his wrestling future. At 35 years old, he has a lot of time ahead of him and hasn't sustained too many major injuries during his time with WWE.

The first thought will be him joining his former Hurt Business brothers, who now go by the name Hurt Syndicate in AEW.