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What Went Wrong for Malakai Black in AEW?


Malakai Black is reportedly done with All Elite Wrestling. PWInsider reports that his contract with AEW expired yesterday and today he was removed from AEW’s website’s roster page. Why wasn’t his run in AEW more successful? 




He debuted with AEW on July 7th, 2021’s Dynamite and attacked Cody Rhodes and Arn Anderson. Black was released by WWE the previous month and instantly became one of the hottest names on the market. Black experienced the most success of his career in WWE NXT as Aleister Black. Holding the NXT Championship in 2018. Upon his AEW debut, Black had a months long feud with Cody Rhodes. This feud didn’t help Black as much as it should have. AEW’s audience had Cody Rhodes fatigue at the time and while Cody was a big name, this shouldn’t have been Malakai’s first AEW feud. Black formed the group House of Black with Julia Hart, Brody King and Buddy Matthews. The group had potential but never lived up to it. Being plagued by injuries, off-air issues and questionable booking decisions. 


Following rumours in September, 2022 that he requested his release from the company, Black confirmed the rumours on Instagram. The writing was on the wall that Malakai Black wouldn’t be long for AEW. Despite that, Black would return in later that year and the House of Black went onto win the AEW World Trios Championships from The Elite at Revolution in March of 2023. They lost the Trios Titles to the Acclaimed at All In that year. Holding them for 175 days. From there, the group would continue wrestling in trios and tag matches. 





Malakai’s most notable program happened last year when he feuded with Adam Copeland for Copeland’s TNT Championship. The feud culminated in a barbed wire steel cage match at Double or Nothing on May 26th. Black lost the match and Copeland broke his leg jumping off the top of the cage ending the program. That match was one his last singles matches in AEW. He went back to wrestling in tag team and trios matches. 


If Malakai Black’s AEW career played out twenty times, I think this is one of the worst versions. Black had and still does have the potential to be in the vein of the Undertaker. A dark, mysterious wrestler that has an aura to him. Black experienced the same problem he did when he got called up to the main roster in WWE and that is he just feels like another guy on the roster. When he should have felt like a Bray Wyatt. Part of that’s on Black himself but part of it’s on the booking. 





The speculation from fans is that Black will head back to WWE. After all, the best run of his career was when he was in NXT with Triple H in charge. The landscape of wrestling has changed since Black left WWE in 2021 and Triple H now runs the whole show not just NXT. We’ll see what happens, but Malakai Black’s career has largely been a disappointment thus far. 


What do you think is next for Malakai Black? Will he head back to WWE or will he tour the Indies? With Triple H in charge, I’m sure he’ll be back in WWE and hopefully it’s different this time. 

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