AEW superstar and House of Black leader Malakai Black recently spoke with Denise Salcedo to hype tomorrow’s Forbidden Door pay-per-view, where Black will compete in a fatal-four way for a chance to become the first ever AEW All Atlantic champion. During the interview he discusses his love of NJPW, and how Hiroshi Tanahashi is a dream opponent. Highlights can be found below.
How he grew up watching NJPW because he had access to it on Eurosport:
“My goal in professional wrestling was always Japan and preferably New Japan. When I grew up I never watched WWF/WWE at the time because we didn’t have access to it……. I grew up watching New Japan because we had a channel called EuroSport, and it had NJPW. That was my introduction to wrestling, as a whole, and what I grew up with and later on WCW. So New Japan always had a special place in my heart and it’s also how my style somewhat got orientated… it’s much more martial arts influenced so I started doing martial arts because of what I saw.”
Says he had a chance to work for NJPW prior to signing with NXT:
“Right before I moved there were talks between a company that I worked for that had a good working relationship with New Japan at the time and myself as to bringing me over for a tour or multiple tours, that was obviously the big question for New Japan and I had the contract for NXT on my table. I was like ‘well even though New Japan is like the goal’ at the time, NXT at the time would have been a 3 to 5 year contract, guaranteed money whereas NJPW, they run multiple tours but we don’t know they might have kept me for one tour.”
How he was hoping to be apart of Forbidden Door once it was announced:
“So I went with the route we all know. I always felt that in the back of my mind, that I still wanted to do New Japan in any capacity. I’ve worked with them when they did the European tours back then. I did some work on them. But not on a scale like we’re about to do on Sunday,where it’s an actual collaborative event between two companies. So when Tony made this announcement, I was hoping that I was gonna be involved, when he did finally make the announcement, the rumor mill backstage kinda started coming up because we saw some of the New Japan officials walking around and we saw some of the wrestlers walking around. So we all knew something was brewing and when it was finally there, it’s just cool. We live in such a unique era when it comes to wrestling, there is so much going on and everything has its place which I think is really really cool… It’s very exciting.”
His dream NJPW opponents:
“But for me it’s always been Tanahashi. I think him and me would mesh so well. I am purely basing that off what he presents as a competitor, how he flows, his footwork, his pacing, his timing and I understand that a lot and it’s a bit of a vague explanation but the way he wrestles is something that really connects with me… in a different setting Shibata would be incredible, I would have really loved the opportunity to kind of tangle with Ishii this Sunday, but it is what is is and unfortunately he got injured. These things happen. In a singles setting or a Japanese setting, absolutely those three would be at the top of the bill. But then also a guy like Zack Sabre Jr, he and me have such tremendous history and it’s been so long since him and me have tangled that now that platform in a different setting with the experience he has gained, with the experience I have gained, it would be such an interesting mix for him and me.”
(H/T and transcribed by Fightful)