Former AEW Champion Wants a Match With Malakai Black

Malakai Black (fka Aleister Black in WWE) made his surprise arrival in AEW at the Road Rager event last week and promptly kicked off a feud with Cody Rhodes. But there’s another major AEW star who wants a shot at the former NXT Champion — Darby Allin. The former TNT Champion was recently asked at Card Collector Con what dream matchup he wanted, and he instantly brought up Black. Allin will face “All Ego” Ethan Page in a Coffin Match at AEW Fyter Fest Night 1 tonight in Texas.

“I know this sounds weird because he literally just showed up, but I’d say Tommy End [Malakai Black],” Allin said (h/t Fightful). “Somebody like him, who has that creative side and does stuff on his own, I find that captivating. I know that sounds generic because he literally just showed up on Wednesday but nobody gets my gears turning more than him, like, ‘okay, we can do some stuff and that would be a lot of fun.’ I like people that, whoever shows up to work on Wednesday, when they get home on Thursday, their mind is still working. It’s not a one-day job. They do it seven days a week. That’s how my brain is, I can’t stop thinking. Anybody else like that, that has passion like that, I want to work with. Everyone else that treats it (as a once-a-week job), they can go to hell.”

Black talked about his surprise arrival in Miami during a Twitch stream late last week, saying, “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,” he continued. “Kudos to AEW and the entire crew. What a great operation they have there,” he said. “It feels good where I’m in a place where my creative mind can be utilized instead of stopped and controlled and knowing that things weren’t going to work.”