Malakai Black On His WWE Release: "I Just Started Laughing"

The former Tommy End on how he reacted to getting cut by WWE.

By Andy H Murray /

AEW

AEW's Malakai Black has revealed that he and his wife Zelina Vega had contrasting reactions to learning that the former Tommy End had been released by WWE on 2 June.

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Speaking on Metal Injection's Squared Circle Pit podcast, Black said that Vega was in tears upon finding out that her husband had been cut. Malakai? Not so much:-

"... but as soon as I got released, it was funny because my wife cried and I actually kind of started laughing because I just kind of went like, well, you just built me for like, 5, 6 weeks. You made me come back and now you pull me off TV and I don't know. The whole thing to me just felt like I couldn't just take it serious [sic] anymore."

Black's release came out of the blue. Brought back to television following a six-month absence in April, he was soon thrown into what looked like a burgeoning feud with Big E, whom he attacked in May. Two weeks later, the Dutchman was gone from the company.

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Malakai went on in the interview, speaking of his relief at being free from a system he had lost trust in:-

"I was like, at the edge of my like, this is just not worth it. This is just not worth it, and I felt this huge relief, and I just started laughing. I immediately knew then that this was the feeling of freedom that I had, and not having to deal with it anymore."

Beholden only to a 30-day non-compete clause rather than a standard WWE 90-dayer, Black debuted on AEW Dynamite on 7 July, jumping straight into a storyline with company ace Cody Rhodes.

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