Malaki Black Supposedly Wanted To Go Back To WWE

Malakai Black has been granted his release from AEW after being with the company from July 2021 to September 2022, wrestling his final AEW match in a trios contest alongside House of Black stablemates Buddy Matthews and Brody King at All Out 2022. On the latest edition of Wrestling Observer Radio, Bryan Alvarez and Dave Meltzer discussed the issue, with Meltzer dropping an interesting piece of analysis.

"He did a statement and just basically said he was going to take some time off," Alvarez said. "He had a lot of he had to work through over the past weeks yesrs and didn't like things getting out about his personal life online. He said his marriage is alright, he is alright, and he would be back someday, but for now he's got to, I guess, figure some things out."

"He wanted out from AEW," Meltzer said. "Obviously, he wanted to go back to WWE and he had a lot of time left on his deal, you know, it was kind of like four and a half years left on the deal ... It's really difficult to keep someone ... who's unhappy under contract for that length of time."

Black wrestled in WWE from 2017 until his release from the company in 2021, finding the majority of his success in "NXT" under Paul "Triple H" Levesque. He'd only wrestled two one-on-one matches for AEW in 2022. Meltzer confirmed reported injury reports regarding Black which may have contributed to his lack of use.

"He was hurt, which was part of the problem," Meltzer said. "I think he had a bad back, and so he was used not so much as of late."

If you use any quotes from this article, please credit "Wrestling Observer Radio" with an h/t to Wrestling Inc. for the transcription.