Malakai Black gave an emotional speech following a match at Prestige Wrestling’s Perseverance event on Saturday night in Pomona, CA.
As previously reported, AEW talent believes that Black has been released from his AEW contract, although AEW has not officially announced his departure. Raj Giri first reported that Black requested his release, but it was denied at the time.
His last AEW match was at All Out when House of Black lost to Sting, Miro, and Darby Allin. Following the match, Black took a bow and blew a kiss to the fans, which led to speculation that it was Black saying goodbye to AEW and its fans.
Earlier this month, Black was pulled from a Northeast Wrestling event “due to health issues.”
Black noted in his speech that he is looking to re-calibrate himself at this time:
“Look, on a real note, I understand that all you have questions… what I am doing, where I am going. Look, on a serious note, in due time, I will answer the majority of these questions. However, for the last 22 years of my life, I have never not once taken a step back and re-calibrated my life. I took a chance to kind of look back at the stuff I’ve done in-ring but also the stuff outside of the ring. I’ve never done that because I always have this attitude of like, you know, when they give the horses with the flaps on the side of their heads so they can’t look to the side? I’ve done that for my entire professional career because I had this one attitude towards wrestling which was you got to think globally, not locally because if you think locally, you’re going to get stuck in one place. That applies to everything, by the way. If you want to branch out, you cannot be worried about the little things….You’ve all been fantastic. Please allow me a few weeks, maybe a few months, to just re-calibrate myself. I promise you. This is not goodbye. This is just we’ll see each other soon.”
"This is not goodbye, this is see you soon." Malakai Black at #Perseverance pic.twitter.com/OzAtEsuBjJ
— Ratlan Givens (@hellawretched) September 18, 2022
If you use any portion of the quotes from this article, please credit with an h/t to WrestlingNews.co for the transcription.
