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Former WWE star Aleister Black, now known as Malakai Black made his AEW debut during this week’s edition of Dynamite.
Following his debut, Black took to Twitch to speak on keeping his debut a secret, wanting it to be a genuine surprise.
As earlier noted, Black’s contract with WWE had a 30-day non-compete clause, rather than a standard 90-day. This was due to a clerical error on WWE’s part.
“It was a hassle to keep under wraps. Once I found out that my contract was a tad different than the usual, I just came up with this idea. I had already made the character movie and I came up with this idea and the company liked it so we ran with it. It was all very last second. I feel like, in modern day wrestling, there are few moments to make a genuine surprise and get people to look your way. For me to sneak in, not be seen, dip and dive so they wouldn’t see me, that took some skill. Kudos to AEW and the entire crew. What a great operation they have there,”
According to Black, a total of five or six people who aware of him signing with AEW, including his wife and father.
We made it a thing to make it available to as limited people as possible because that’s how you keep it under wraps. Security, Cody Rhodes, and a few others. It may have been five or six total people. It was a good feeling. It’s been a rough seven or eight months but I feel like I got a win last night. I feel wrestling got a win
Black also revealed he pitched an idea to have technical difficulties occur during the show. During the opening match between QT Marshall and Cody Rhodes the lights went out, and the commentary team chalked it up to technical difficulties. Black was happy with the way it played out.
I pitched that idea and said, ‘what if we do multiple blackouts throughout the show and insinuated the technical difficulties?’ Commentary did a great job getting that over and it came off great,”
Special thanks to Fightful for the transcription