Malakai Black Gives Behind-The-Scenes Details On His AEW Debut

AEW star Malakai Black joined Rasslin with Brandon F. Walker to talk about, among other things, his debut in AEW this past July, where he attacked Cody Rhodes on AEW Dynamite. Malakai Black was asked if his nerves were up during his AEW debut and he confirmed, for a variety of reasons, they were.

"Yes," Black said when asked if it was nerve-wracking. "At this point, you have to realize I was benched for eight, nine months with the previous company. We were making a wave and then obviously that got cut short, the rest is history. I've been through it all. Then this story came along and I was excited, cause also I had been sitting on this idea for months.

"And it obviously, the whole thing changed because of the different outcome. So I presented it to Tony. Now mind you, I only had two days to present it to him, because legally I wasn't about to present it to Tony until my contract expired. I presented the idea. Tony got super excited about it and everything tied it. Even the building tied in because apparently that building is very old, and they actually have lighting issues. So what I did on social media and that, it just blended in perfectly.

"I sat there the entire day in the hotel. No one knew I was there, about three people knew. So it was exciting, nerve-wracking and then the moment was there. And I remember going to myself 'do I still know how to do the heel kick? Do I still know how to do that?' Obviously, I still did. Those seconds in the dark, you really, really feel your heart just pounding in your throat, because of all of the adrenaline.

"Plus I hadn't seen the arena, so I literally walk out in the dark in a place that I have never been before. I didn't know about the ramp, I'm like 'where do I go?' So I hopped off the ramp, and I skidaddled to the side of the ramp and then rolled in. It was a lot of quick moments. But to answer your question, it was nerve-wracking but in the best of ways, because man, did I feel alive."

Malakai Black has now been in AEW for around six months and recently brought in his tag partner Brody King into the promotion as a member of the House of Black. There's no doubt then that Black believes joining AEW was the best move for his career.

"100%. 100%," Black said. "Because it's the one place where I can tie in all the years on the independence as Tommy End, all the years in WWE as Aleister, and take all the good things I've done there and just molding it into this one character in Malakai. A lot of this stuff I did before even Aleister, because Aleister Black was supposed to be a heel character.

"It was supposed to be a bad guy, but then we flipped the script. I learned a lot from that, and I learned a lot from my previous engagement on the independents in other companies. It allowed me to create this personality, this part of me that I feel comfortable showing to the world. And AEW to me is that platform because it thrives there."

You can watch the full interview below.