Malakai Black is a former WWE wrestler who is currently signed to AEW and was released by WWE on June 2021.
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Malakai Black a.k.a Aleister Black former WWE wrestler made a recent appearance on the “Universal Wrestling” podcast. He spoke on many things which included how he was in his initial pandemic days and then how slowly it started to destroy his WWE career. Also, Black mentioned Seth Rollins and Kevin Owens who helped him and kept checking on him when he was at his low. Also, Malakai remembered his match at Wrestlemania 36 with Bobby Lashley.
Malakai Black when heard about “we’re in lockdown” from his wife he was like “what’s happening”. Black said, “The first day of lockdown, I’m sitting with my wife on the couch and we just did all our groceries because we’re expecting…ya know, we’re expecting the apocalypse to basically happen and waking up in a wasteland the next morning [laughs]. I’m sitting on the couch with my wife and my wife goes ‘we’re in lockdown,’ I’m like I have no idea what this means, what does it mean, what are we doing? I think that state of confusion just twinkled all throughout the world and specifically into our world because no one knew what to do, ya know? I mean everybody was just like ‘what’s happening?’”
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Malakai Black was very frustrated in COVID era as without audience Vince McMahon was all-around the locker room. And the pressure was huge as every wrestler had to give a match. On this Black said, “The pandemic was obviously not good for me at all and I’ve always been told that the reason why is because Vince [McMahon] could not gauge because he didn’t have an audience. We come in with this raw style but then we were guided to be smart about how the structure of like…how the match structure would like be more presented and more potent, basically. That’s why me and Buddy [Matthews] were like, I think one of the few first…again, with the Tommaso’s [Ciampa] the [Johnny] Gargano’s, etc., that had a hybrid style of coming with that high impact indie style with the blend of traditional pro wrestling and storytelling and TV wrestling.”
With Vince McMahon having no audience and all income coming from T.V ratings, everyone in the company were desperate and were given some crazy storylines which destroyed their career at some point.
Black added, “I feel that’s what made us stand apart because it was exciting and dynamic and it was a little bit different and then like I said when the pandemic hit, I was always told the reason why the booking was the way it was is because Vince was just going ‘I don’t know who’s over or not, I don’t know who’s getting a good reaction, I don’t know because the ratings are doing all this.”
He also, spoke on how frustrated Vince was. Black said, “I don’t know, he couldn’t like track it and that made him really frustrated. Which is understandable because obviously, prior to that, I was a very well…at least, maybe well is not the right word but I was in a position where I was actually being pushed more up the ladder. I really think that the pandemic era did so much damage and not just for me, but for like ya know, people like you and for a lot of people because it was hard all around.”
Black said, “You know I have to give a special thanks to both Seth [Rollins] and Kevin [Owens] because they held my head up high during those times of like complete confusion. Seth was also someone who was there for me with a lot of advice and a lot of like knowledge and a lot of like, try this angle, try that, tell me about this. So, if you think about your character what would you do this way what would but you know he really made think.”
Black also, praised how smart Seth Rollins is and how good of a wrestler he is. He continued saying, “Ya know because Seth is a lot smarter than people realize he is in this business. People like don’t understand how long he’s been on top because I don’t care what people think. That guy’s been a top player for the man for almost like a decade. He’s been a high-profile guy even from his NXT days, he was a high-profile player there to being a high-profile player on the mat. He’s so smart.”
As, every wrestler wishes to get their Wrestlemania moment, Black spoke on how his match with Bobby Lashley with no audience made him feel. Black said, “I remember when Mania came and how strange it was but I still felt that ya know, because I came out with the big, horn jacket because I was like well it’s still Mania and I’m gonna make this a goddamn Mania.”
For Black Wrestlemania was a big moment but without the big crowd and hooting it was all very strange for him. Malakai Black continued saying, “Yeah, I’m gonna come out with the jacket that was supposed to be seen by 80,000 people so I’m still gonna wear it and ya know, because I also want to I also wanted Vince [McMahon] to know that like you know, performance center or not it was WrestleMania, ya know and I wanted him to know that and we briefly spoke about that and he appreciated that I still came out with all the bells and whistles. It was just a strange time for like all of us.”
