AEW superstar Malakai Black recently spoke with the Milwaukee Record to hype this week’s edition of Dynamite on TBS, where the House of Black leader challenges Penta Oscuro, with the winner advancing to the Forbidden Door pay-per-view and competing for the the AEW All Atlantic championship. Highlights from the interview are below.
On his black goo and whether he wants to aim it at anyone at Forbidden Door:
I think it’s a question you just answered in both aspects. Do I think of people? Yes. Will I give my cards away? No. Is it something that happens organically? Yes, it does too. It’s something that I calculate, but also sometimes I do believe very strongly that…I’m not a man of faith, but I’m a man of understanding that sometimes life will throw weird things at you but eventually it will unravel and give you the answers that you’re looking for. Even though you might not understand what happens in the beginning. I think all kind of will be revealed in due time, and I have always held up that philosophy under my own banner. Sometimes things happen and you don’t know immediately why they happen, but in due time the course will reveal itself. And that’s no different than what happened and will happen in the coming future. As well as moving forward into the New Japan pay-per-view. So perhaps you’ll see something very deliberate or something that is meant as a last resort, but will eventually result in possible changes within that company or possible changes within the House Of Black. You never know. But like I said, I’m not someone who really gives away his cards too much because I’m also not completely blind on knowing who is listening and reading these interviews.
On Penta Oscuro and their showdown on this week’s AEW Dynamite:
I’m very acquainted with Penta. Even prior to adapting who I am now, I’ve had multiple run-ins with him. Even though we forced the change of him becoming Penta Oscura versus the Penta that he was before, I think that’s very telling. He’s an individual that felt, even though we changed him, that he needed to change with what we did to him in order to defeat us and he still couldn’t get the job done. In a recent interview, he called me a clown that pretends to be a bad guy. I always listen to the words that people pick, right? Now, if I were to beat him, then he has to swallow his own words of calling me a clown that pretends to be a bad guy. So, that’s the guy that will beat him. Now, in the almost impossible event that he beats me, then what does his victory mean? It means nothing because he already put me lower than what he should’ve and then he beats me. So his victory would mean nothing for him and nothing for the fans. As where I will absolutely acknowledge the fact that Penta is a very talented and dangerous competitor. I do not go into that fight with him blind. I know exactly what he is capable of and I know exactly how to handle him. I’m not going into this quasi-relaxed or underestimating or undermining who he is. No, on the contrary. I will go into this knowing that he’s a very dangerous individual. I’m glad that he goes into this thinking I’m a clown who pretends to be a bad guy because if that’s your narrative then that’s not a good narrative to go into this battle seemingly, as I’ve defeated you four times in a row but you haven’t learned your lesson.
How he feels about potentially being involved in the historic Forbidden Door PPV:
It feels great. I think it’s very telling of the landscape that we’re in and if I were to be so lucky to partake in the finals of that tournament, then I think it’s not just telling for the world of wrestling, but telling for myself and the House Of Black as well. Whether or not I will compete there, it’s like I said, it’s very telling for what the state of wrestling is right now with a mainstream company like AEW acknowledging something in regards to New Japan. It’s not like the WWE has ever been ignorant of what New Japan is or what New Japan meant. It’s just over the course of the last 15 to 20 years, nothing has really been done with it. I think NXT made some strides with mentioning certain things or acknowledging certain things, but with AEW, they basically said for the first time in a very long time, for an American company to say “let’s do this together, let’s present both platforms on the American market.” Which I think is great. And, of course, in the past it happened with the WWE or WWF at the time, very long ago, but this—this is in a new age, the age of social media, so the eyes on this are exponential and the growth that it shows for wrestling is tremendous. I think it’s a very smart move and a very fun move because that’s the thing, right? It’s all about showing fans new things and exciting things and different things because we can and that’s the beauty of the age we live in. Everything is so open and everything is so accessible that things like this, it gets me excited and I can tell on certain platforms that fans are excited for it because it’s been a very big topic for a lot of people.