Originally published at Malakai Black thanks Kevin Owens & Seth Rollins for being there for him during confusing times in WWE
Malakai credits Rollins and Owens, reflects on his NXT run and discusses his future.
On the 5/4 installment of AEW Dynamite, the House of Black (Malakai Black, Brody King & Buddy Matthews) took out Brian Pillman Jr. and Griff Garrison and attempted to get Julia Hart to attack Garrison with a steel chair.
Coming out of that show, The Universal Wrestling Podcast, which is co-hosted by former WWE writer Chris Dunn, pushed out their interview with Black that was recorded earlier this week. They spoke extensively about Black’s time in WWE and while discussing the closing portion of that run, he heaped praise onto Kevin Owens and Seth Rollins.
Malakai said when times were confusing in WWE and he was frustrated, Rollins would be there to offer suggestions and he added that Owens checked in every week because he felt that Malakai’s positioning was unfair.
I have to give a special thanks to both Seth tried to keep my morale high but prominently so, I think we all tried to keep each other’s morale high because yeah, it was a pretty grim kind of phase in the whole — in the WWE universe.
At the age of 36, Malakai has tallied up 20 years in the wrestling business. He guesses that he has about five-to-eight years left in wrestling if his physique holds up. He said there is miles on his body but he hopes he’s able to do some of the things he wants to in AEW such as mixing it up with the likes of Keith Lee, Swerve Strickland and AEW World Champion Hangman Adam Page.
I’d say I have a good five-to-eight years left, hopefully, you know? If my physique holds up in terms of pain management and stuff because I’m pretty beaten up but not to the point of like, I can’t compete anymore. But, there’s definitely some miles on the wheels. But you know, time will tell and let’s hope I get to do all the stuff that I wanted to do and you know, see myself against Hangman , one of my kids that I’ve mentored for a long time. I still do to this day.
Malakai dove into the current iteration of his on-screen character and shared that this is what was supposed to debut in NXT, but Paul ‘Triple H’ Levesque wanted him to be a good guy. Malakai then spoke about his thought process when it came to bringing something different but similar to the table for AEW.
If you look at what I do in AEW now, my style is much more ground-based because the character’s different. I didn’t wanna waltz into AEW and do an Aleister . Just listening to him talk and even Pat Patterson sometimes taking me to the side and verbalizing with me.
Black, King and Matthews exited the ring on 5/4 when Death Triangle (PAC, Penta Oscuro & Rey Fenix) came down to make the save. Fenix returned from injury on last week’s Dynamite.
If the quotes in this article are used, please credit The Universal Wrestling Podcast with an H/T to POST Wrestling for the transcriptions.