Aleister Black On How His Conversations Were With Vince McMahon
After the news of his release, Aleister Black went on Twitch to reflect on his run in WWE. Black described his last two years in WWE as a "slow death", but he also reflected on his relationship with Vince McMahon.
"In all my conversations I've ever had with Vince, he was always very positive. I have a good relationship with Vince," Black stated. "I always told him how I felt. He always respected that about me. He always praised me on my creativity and my ability to have manners and respect but still being honest with him about how I felt. You never truly know why things end the way they did. All I can tell you from my point of view and the word that I was always given was that Vince was always pretty high on me. I did well on television.
"It was just that we could never really nail down what it is what we wanted Aleister to be on the main roster vs. what he was on NXT, and where that problem allied, I don't know. At the same time, you have to realize when I was under [Paul] Heyman's wing, Heyman fought tough and nail for me, but at the end of the day, when a decision is made, a decision is made. Heyman couldn't protect everyone, and he tried his best and I tried me best."
After the Superstar Shake-up in 2019, Black cut many promos in a dark room. Black revealed the amount of creative control he had during that angle.
"One of the things with the room promos, I didn't have a lot of control over those," Black noted. "I was still new on the main roster, and I didn't want to be that guy that complained about everything. One of the things I could have control over is the idea that Aleister had this small ability to look into the future.
"He had precognitive abilities, so I would use my opponents ring gear, their colors, in my background. When I wrestled The Singh Brothers, I had pink in the background, and with Buddy [Murphy], I had white and yellowish light in the background, so that would hint at my next opponents."
Black explained he liked to use Easter eggs for his character to give the fans something to point out and build a story with. Last year, Black had posted various images on Instagram relating to Buddy Murphy taking out his eye. He explained the thought process behind that change in his character.
"The eye thing was actually my call," Black revealed. "I felt it would be good for me to continue with the eye because my eye got taken out. My eye was black, and when I came back, I was like, 'I don't want to just play it off,' plus the more research I did on cult leaders in pop culture, they always had a weird aesthetic trait.
"They had really white hair, or they had light eyes, so I wanted to take that with me in that character. I think the glasses made it complete because the funny thing is those are actually my glasses. I have driving glasses nowadays. I remember [Xavier] Woods going, 'You look like a cult leader,' and I was like, 'Oh, really? Cool.' So that's kind of how that came to be. I thought the glasses were a nice touch."
Black admitted on Twitter that his release was a complete surprise to him. On Twitch, he wanted to send one particular message to the fans.
"I want to say one thing, don't get mad at our creative," Black said. "Our creative, well, their, no longer there, their creative tries their absolute hardest, and they're good people working there. There's good people, very creative, talented people. I'm very thankful for our creative. I've always had a good relationship with Bruce [Prichard] and stuff like that. Bruce was also one of the people that tried to protect me in a lot of situations, and he doesn't know that I know, but I know."
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