Malakai Black Reflects On His "Unique" Era Of WWE NXT
Before his run in AEW, Malakai Black was best known for working in WWE NXT under the name Aleister Black, where he won the NXT Championship in 2018. In an interview with SHAK Wrestling, Black talked about his time in NXT, an era he felt was uncommon to any other era of the brand.
"I always talk about this with, you know, with the people I was in NXT with," Black said. "There was a moment where we did a Pay-Per-View and Triple H came running in and he said 'guys we did it. We made a million dollars.' And we all look around and we're all very, very proud. I feel that we were an era in NXT uncommon to any of the other eras. And that is no way or shape meant as a criticism at any other person that ever was in NXT, especially the people before us because we were able to do that because of them. You know, they helped grow that brand to the point where we could step and say 'let's take it' and we took it up man."
Malakai Black went on to call that era of NXT truly unique, crediting the roster and the competition/support in the locker room from all the talent. In the end, Malakai Black believes those years in NXT made the brand one of the more revolutionized companies of the time.
"Looking back at that era of NXT, it was truly unique," Black said. "We're talking about the Adam Coles, the Tommaso Ciampas, the Johnny Garganos, the War Raiders, Ricochet, Matt Riddle... it was truly a unique time in NXT. I think we were in a locker room where we were competing with each other every single night, but we were also very, very, very supportive of one another.
"Like, I remember one specific moment where Tommaso walks up next to me and he said 'I'm gonna outsell you tonight' and I said 'bring it.' We would do that and it wasn't meant in a bad way, it was meant in a great way. It was meant in a way where, we knew we had something special, we knew we had something unique and I think for a few years we were one of the most revolutionized like companies."
You can watch the full interview below.
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