Report: Why Has Aleister Black Been Gone From WWE Television?

Former NXT Champion Aleister Black last competed in a WWE ring on the Oct. 12 episode of Monday Night Raw, losing a No Disqualification match against Kevin Owens. He was drafted over to SmackDown shortly afterwards, but has not appeared on the Blue Brand once in the three months since. The absence started shortly after Black had turned heel (a character change he personally had been pushing for backstage) and one month before his wife, Zelina Vega, was suddenly released by the company.

Both PWInsider and Fightful recently released reports regarding Black’s status. Fightful’s report states Black has not been seen backstage since Vega’s release, and there’s speculation that WWE is giving the couple space until “any ill will between the two subside.”

PWI’s Mike Johnson reported several days prior that the situation is a bit more positive, saying “I was told he was purposely pulled from television so he [can] come back and have a big dramatic debut for SmackDown, and it just hasn’t happened.”

Shortly before his hiatus, Black gave an interview with ComicBook where he explained that what has been shown on television was just the start of what he wanted his heel persona to be.

“I think it was long overdue. I just think that I had a conversation with the Undertaker a while ago, where he said that eventually, you’re going to run into moments where fans need a more humane side, so they can latch onto a little bit more, so that you open yourself up a little bit more for a human emotion that people can latch onto and have a little bit more of an understanding,” Black said. “Even if that understanding is not necessarily a positive reason, there needs to be a moment where people can go like, ‘I understand him.’ I think that we drifted away from the character too far at one point, that people were confused as to what it is that Aleister Black was and what he was all about, so the character change needed to come. And this was also something that I addressed with them and it was agreed upon, hence the character change.

“We’re still in the stages of producing it a little bit because it didn’t go the way that it was supposed to go, but we got a lot of it out, but not everything and so we’re still steering that ship at the moment,” he added. “I was really excited for it and I hope that with the coming weeks we can create something that has a lot more relatable content to it.”

Stay tuned for further updates on Black’s status.