It didn’t take long for Malakai Black (Aleister Black / Tommy End) to figure out where he wanted to work as soon as he was informed of his WWE release.
Speaking with ‘The Wrestling Perspective‘ podcast, Black said an old conversation with Brodie Lee helped him make the decision to head to AEW. Black said, “I’ll be completely honest with you, the day I got released, AEW popped into my head. I had so many friends there. One of the last conversations I had with Jon Huber, rest in peace, he told me, ‘You’d love it here. You’d have so much fun here.’ That kind of always stuck with me because him and me, every once in a while, would talk and there have definitely been moments where I was very frustrated.”
Black revealed he is also for the idea of collaborating with New Japan Pro Wrestling. Black said “One of the companies that I still want to do some stuff for, hopefully in the future, is New Japan. That would make my circle complete. That’s what I was kind of raised on. I always wanted to go to Japan. I always wanted to go to New Japan, so it’s always been one of my ultimate goals. It’s one of the last few things on the checklist is New Japan.”
Ultimately, Black said his goal is to be an inspiration for others to get into pro wrestling. He said “I just want to have something that means something and I felt AEW was the company that I could do that with. I want to matter. I want to mean something. I want to look back at this and go like, ‘I did one thing right. At least one thing I did right. At least one person is going to say, Tom, because of you I became a wrestler.”
Black’s official in-ring debut with AEW will take place August 4 against Cody Rhodes during AEW Dynamite’s ‘Homecoming’ episode.
Thanks to Fightful for transcribing the podcast which you can listen to below.
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