Nearly four years after his initial release from the company, Aleister Black is back in WWE. The Dutchman made his return to the company on the April 25, 2025, episode of "WWE SmackDown," attacking The Miz and asserting himself once again as one of the most dangerous men in WWE.
In between his release and return, fans could still see Black wrestle on a regular basis, as shortly after being let go by WWE, hedebuted as Malakai Black in All Elite Wrestling on the July 7, 2021 episode of "AEW Dynamite,"attackingboth Arn Anderson and Cody Rhodes. It was a debut that took everyone in the wrestling business by surprise, primarily because WWE had not extended the initial 30 day non-complete clause in his "WWE NXT" contract to 90 days when he moved to the main roster. Fans had high hopes for Black, and in his run that spanned over three years, he had some very memorable moments.
Most notably, he put together the House of Black stable with his Kings of the Black Throne tag team partner Brody King, long-time rival-in-WWE-turned-friend-in-AEW Buddy Matthews, and a young Julia Hart who was transformed from a happy-go-lucky cheerleader, to a princess of darkness who could both wrestle and guide the house to multiple victories. Together, Black, King, and Matthews would win the AEW World Trios Championships, holding them for 175 days in 2023, beating the likes of The Elite, The Acclaimed and Billy Gunn, and even the trio comprised of CM Punk and FTR, known better as CMFTR.
With all that said, Black's run in AEW has left a lot to be desired, and the question of where his run in the company went wrong is complicated to say the least.
For as surprising as Black's debut for AEW was at the time, it came during a period of time for the company in which it was rising at such a meteoric speed that looking back on it, one could argue that too many good things happened all at once.
Black arrived on the first episode of AEW programming since they were allowed to resume touring following the COVID-19 pandemic. By the end of the company's next pay-per-view, September's All Out event, the likes of CM Punk, Bryan Danielson, and Adam Cole had all debuted for the company, overshadowing Black's arrival by some distance, and rocketing to the top of the card almost immediately a place where many people thought Black should have been given his star power. Black wasn't the only one to have their arrival fall by the wayside, as Andrade El Idolo also debuted during this time, an arrival that almost no one talks about when it comes to those who showed up in AEW in 2021.
On top of this, Black's first feud in the company with Cody Rhodes started off well, with everyone looking forward to seeing him elevated to a main event talent. However, the feud came at a time when the AEW fanbase started rejecting Rhodes and everything he did, which in turn made people less excited to see what Black would do as their rivalry spanned until near the end of 2021. Many fans saw Rhodes as the overall winner of the feud, winning their blow off match on the October 23, 2021 episode of "Dynamite" despite being convincingly beaten in their first two bouts, which many fans saw as the wrong move, hurting Black in the process, leading him to slip down the card rather than climb up it.
The House of Black was formed in 2022, and while it achieved a lot of success as a group, the summer of that year saw one major change in the wrestling business; Triple H taking over the creative direction of WWE.
Black was booked very strong by Triple H during his time in "NXT," winning the NXT Championship in 2018, and with "The Game" now taking over the duties that Vince McMahon had once occupied, a number of AEW fans began to question where some roster members' loyalties lied. A number of the acquisitions made by AEW in 2021 came down to WWE releasing high quality talent, who for the most part likely didn't want to get released, but had no other option but to find work elsewhere, leading them to AEW as the next logical port of call.
Black was one of those people, constantly having to address his AEW status via his social media pages by telling people that he was not leaving the company despite rumors consistently cropping up about him wanting to jump back to WWE now that Triple H, someone who treated him very well, had taken over from McMahon, someone who hadn't.
In the end, this would come to fracture the AEW fanbase's relationship with Black as they ultimately saw him as someone who was just waiting for his contract to expire so he could go back to where he came from, and while Black hasn't addressed this since leaving AEW, having to constantly battle with people online about his future in AEW must have left a sour taste in his mouth.
Overall, Malakai Black could have been the AEW World Champion in a different universe, but that's not the one we live in. Let's hope that he gets the credit he deserves in this second stint with WWE.
