On Pro Wrestling 4 Life, Malakai Black discussed his dominant victory over Cody Rhodes at AEW Dynamite: Homecoming last night.
“I told Tony [Khan], ‘Look, I’ve got this idea. This is how I view it. What do you think?” Black revealed. “Tony was like, ‘I love it. I love everything about it.’ He was confident enough to give me a shot at it. Clearly, I owe a lot to Cody, and Cody and me think very much alike in a lot of things, which is very pleasant.
“I laid out what I wanted to do, and they both really thought, ‘this is cool,’ and it worked. At the end of the day, obviously, I still work for someone else, and I still have to get their opinion. I have to get their clearance, and luckily, I got clearance, and everything that me and him did played out exactly the way I envisioned in my head, and the payoff, it worked and it was crazy fun.
“I remember when the bell rang and the fans did what they did, I was like, I’m not moving. I’m just standing. We don’t need to move. We can just stay here, and it was a good moment, not just for wrestling, but it was a good moment for my career. It was good validation as to understanding what you do and making it work.”
After the match, Rhodes cut an emotional promo that seemingly teased his retirement as he began to take off his boots. Black then attacked Rhodes with a crutch after he removed one boot. After Dynamite went off the air, Rhodes removed his other boot and kissed the mat, a traditional sign of retirement for wrestlers. Black was pressed about whether he believes Cody Rhodes is actually retired now from in-ring action.
“Stick around and see, I don’t know,” Black said. “The beauty of wrestling is that eventually stuff pays off.”
