Nitish Vashishtha on August 11, 2021
Malakai Black was one of the most promising superstars in WWE as Aleister Black, and now that he has found his place at AEW. He was able to show up in AEW much sooner than anyone expected thanks to a clerical error on WWE’s part. Black has the most interesting trajectories as a superstar. However, getting to AEW wasn’t an easy journey. He had to go through his fair share of trials and tribulations to get there.
Black recently spoke to Sean Waltman’s Pro Wrestling 4 Life podcast and he revealed many of his key, negative experience while his time in the WWE. There was certainly a dark period for him as the former NXT Champion found himself fighting depression.
The last 8 months, when I got pulled off TV at WWE, I wanted to change a few things because I was pretty depressed at the time because everything did not go the way that I was promised it would go. I really started not caring again. I went to the point where I didn’t really care. I let myself go because I was depressed. I remember very vividly going, ‘All right. C’mon. Get out of it. Stop it.’
I asked Pepper Parks who his nutritionist was. I signed up with him. That’s been the biggest change. Now I have someone who holds me accountable which is really good. I’ve always enjoyed the process of training. I’ve never been the biggest weight trainer in the world, but I like powerlifting because it makes me train towards a goal. I will say the last 8 months, that has changed a little bit towards bodybuilding and stuff. It will never be fully my thing. I need a focused goal that I can see where I can be able to lift 10 extra pounds in the deadlift, or be able to push a little more weight on the bench press. I like that stuff because it feels like I’m actively doing something.
As he had to change many things about his life at WWE, of course, he’s doing much better at AEW. One of his biggest complaints about working at WWE was that there was no creative freedom, but he says that things here are very different.
I told Tony. I said, ‘Look, I got this idea. This is how I view it. What do you think?’ Tony said, ‘I love it. I love everything about it.’ He was confident enough to give me a shot at it. I clearly owe a lot to Cody. Cody and I think very much alike in a lot of things which was very pleasant. I laid out what I wanted to do, and they both really thought this is cool, and it worked. With their respective feedback into it, because at the end of the day, obviously I still work for someone else, and I still have to get their opinion, I have to get their clearance. Luckily, I got clearance. Everything he and I did played out exactly the way I envisioned in my head, and the payoff worked. It was fun.
Black also revealed how he went through a gruesome accident in the ring which fighting Tommaso Chiampa. He even ended up busting his left testicle “into 7 pieces.” That caused quite a commotion when he got backstage and collapsed due to his unexpected injury.
Tommaso had just won the belt from me. We were on the road. We were in Las Vegas. We had this thing where I jump on the top rope, he comes running and crutches me. He came in with so much force that as I’m going down, his head collides with my nether region. Because of that flinch, I couldn’t catch myself from falling on the post. So I hit the post full speed, and it shattered my testicle into 7 pieces. I fell in the ring. I remember telling the referee, ‘Can you give me a second. I just got hit in the nuts.’ I wrestled the full 22 minutes. I cut a promo after the match. I came backstage and I just knew something was wrong. I collapsed. I was crawling on the floor. I was in agony. My down there was swollen and protruding through my trunks. I had to grab a towel. I said, ‘I think I need to go to the hospital.’
Malakai Black stated that, at first, everyone thought it was a joke. It’s not everyday that someone ruptures a testicle. Then he explained his situation to Chris Hero, who was Kassius Ohno in NXT. After that, they immediately took Black to the hospital where he got a surgery after a 6 to 7 hours of waiting. Thankfully, they were able to fix him up.
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Transcription via WrestlingNews
August 11, 2021 4:10 pm
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