Following his release by WWE, Aleister Black has lifted the lid on his relationship with Vince McMahon while also describing how Paul Heyman went to bat for him.
Appearing on his wife, Thea Trinidad’s Twitch channel, Black opened up about his time with WWE and how he feels after being released.
Black, real name Tom Budgen, signed with WWE back in 2016, making his NXT debut the following January. The Dutchman went on to win the NXT Championship before joining the main roster in early 2019.
However, despite his strong run with the black and gold brand, that success failed to translate to the main roster. As recently as October 2020, Black disappeared from WWE television, not reappearing until May this year. During this time, Trinidad, known as Zelina Vega in WWE was released by the company and has yet to return to wrestling.
Speaking on Twitch, Black said that while he expects there to be hard days ahead, he’s not sad or depressed about the news.
“Ok. Guys, as you can see, I am not sad, I am not depressed. I am… I’m OK. I’m sure there’s going to be like… it’s going to be dark days for me. That’s going to be bad days. And, you know, it’s all kind of up and down.”
The former NXT Champion continued, explaining that his latest ‘Dark Father’ character was mostly his idea, before getting into his relationship with Vince McMahon.
“You know, I think I think, being on the main roster… in all the time, all my conversations I’ve ever had with Vince, he was always very positive about me. I have a good relationship with Vince. I always told him how I felt. He always respected about me. And he always praised me on my creativity and my ability to have manners and respect…. You know, you never really, truly know why things end the way they did, but all I can tell you is that from my point of view and the word that I was always given was that Vince was always pretty high on me, and I did well on television. It was just that we could never really nail down what it is that we wanted Aleister to be on the main roster.”
Black also commented on his relationship with Paul Heyman explaining that the former ECW boss fought “tooth and nail” for him.
“When I was under Heyman’s wing, Heyman fought tooth and nail for me… but at the end of the day when a decision is made, it’s made.”
Aleister Black was far from the only big name to be released from WWE on June 2nd, with Braun Strowman, Ruby Riott, Santana Garrett, Lana, and Buddy Murphy also exiting the company.
Posting immediately after the news broke, Black explained that the decision came from “left field” before thanking the fans.
Inside The Ropes will update the story as it develops.
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