Aleister Black says his current on-screen partnership with Zelina Vega in WWE was actually an idea the company explored years before it finally happened.
Black returned to WWE during the April 25, 2025 episode of WWE SmackDown, where he attacked The Miz with his Black Mass finisher. Since then, WWE has paired Black with his real-life wife, Zelina Vega, aligning their characters on television.
Speaking with Rob Pasbani of The Stunner, Black revealed that WWE had previously experimented with the idea of pairing them together before his 2021 departure from the company.
“They wanted to see it. We came up with some suggestions, we did some takes, and they really liked it.”
According to Black, WWE had even filmed several vignette-style segments to test how the pairing would look on screen. However, the idea never made it to television before his release from the company in 2021.
After Black returned to WWE in 2025 following his run in AEW, the creative team revisited the concept and approached him about finally bringing the idea to life.
“Then they presented it back to me and they asked me for some ideas and we kind of started mixing some stuff in.”
Black said the timing ultimately worked out well because it allowed both him and Vega to explore new layers of their characters.
“My wife has been a manager and a wrestler, but she has never been a manager [and] wrestler within this type of setting.”
He added that the dynamic gives Vega an opportunity to experiment with different aspects of her role on television while expanding their combined presentation.
“For her, there are a lot of windows and rooms to venture out and test some grounds. It is a different and exciting thing for both of us.”
With Black continuing to re-establish himself on SmackDown, the pairing with Vega appears to be another step in evolving both of their characters as WWE revisits an idea that had been sitting on the shelf for several years.
