Aleister Black Reveals His Reaction to Zelina Vega’s WWE Release Last Year

Zelina Vega was suddenly released by the WWE last November, and at the time her husband Aleister Black was still an active member of the roster. That changed last week when WWE announced six more roster cuts, ending Black’s five-year run with the company. In a new interview with Renee Paquette on the Oral Sessions podcast this week Black (real name Tom Budgen, now going by his independent wrestling name Tommy End) brought up the circumstances surrounding Vega’s departure.

“Mind you, they let my wife go, under reasons that are questionable. Everything got sorted out, everything is fine, everything was okay. But they called me and they’re like, ‘We understand this is putting you in a tough spot,’” Black said (h/t Cageside Seats). “I said, ‘No, this is my career. Spoke about it with her, and this is business between you and her. Does Tom, her husband, have an opinion on it? Sure he does. Does Aleister Black the professional? Nope. He’s ready to go to work. All I want to do is work, all I want to do is create, all I want to do is present.’ “And you know, she agreed.”

Throughout 2020 Vega had been a staple of Monday Night Raw as both a manager and wrestler, but she also vocally opposed WWE’s new policy regarding wrestlers working with third parties such as Twitch and Cameo. Her release came shortly after she launched an OnlyFans account that centered around her cosplays.

“To them, too, for letting some 4-foot-nothing Puerto Rican girl from Queens on that kind of a stage to work with her heroes,” Vega said in an emotional Twitch stream shortly after the news broke. “It’s an incredible blessing, one that I’m always going to be thankful for. I have nothing bad to say, I know some of you might have come for that, but I have nothing bad to say. Just thank you.”

Reports recently popped up that Vega was back at the WWE Performance Center and was on her way back to the company. Black addressed that during a Twitch stream last week.

“There is the thing of ‘validating your stories’ as opposed to blatantly putting out stuff that harms people. Take in the fact that a couple of weeks ago, with my wife, that harmed her so much. Nothing but hate comments. All because someone was like, ‘sign up to my Patreon, I have news.’ There was literally no news. There was nothing.”