Aleister Black has returned to WWE after a four-year stint in AEW. He’s now revealed that he pitched a match against his old friend and rival, Will Ospreay, which didn’t end up taking place.
Black and Ospreay have a long history. The two rode together and wrestled each other on the European indies a decade ago—before either had made their name on television. They met again in AEW, but with Ospreay focused on climbing the singles ladder and the former NXT Champion heading up his stable, they didn’t get the chance to face off again.
In a recent appearance on the Wrestling the Rap Game podcast, Aleister Black revealed that he’d pitched a match with Ospreay in AEW. He also spoke about their chemistry in the ring:
“The Ospreay match is something that I actually pitched a couple of times. We had such good chemistry back then. We had some absolute barnburners, and it’s also because I’m a bit of a calculus for him because I force him to do different things with his wrestling. When we did wrestle, I would work his leg, ‘Now you can’t fly. What are you going to do?’”
The last time the two shared the ring was in July 2016, when Aleister Black was still known as Tommy End. Black reminisced about Ospreay’s father driving them to shows in the UK:
“I have a good relationship with Will. I remember sitting in his dad’s car, and his dad was driving us from show A to show B, and I remember saying to him, ‘You’re going to be a big star. You’re going to be a really big star.’ At the time, the goal was Dragon Gate. I said to him, ‘That’s easy. That’s a matter of time.’ His road went the way it went, but now, he’s one of the biggest stars in professional wrestling.” [H/T Fightful]
Aleister Black loved his match against AEW’s Adam Copeland despite the violence
Throughout the former Malakai Black’s time in AEW, he was primarily locked in the trios and tag team divisions. He rarely wrestled singles matches, but he received a major opportunity to challenge Adam Copeland (fka Edge) for the TNT Championship at Double or Nothing 2024.
The two squared off in a Barbed Wire Cage Match, which turned out to be a brutal affair. Black bled an alarming amount during the bout, and Adam Copeland injured his leg in a dive from the top of the cage, which put him out of action for months.
Despite the violence, Aleister Black thought the match was exactly what it needed to be. In the same appearance on Wrestling the Rap Game, he praised The Rated-R Superstar and called their clash one of his favorite matches from his AEW run:
“When we finally got to work together, it was everything I wanted it to be. The cage match was definitely one of my favorite matches I’ve done in AEW, and you know, Adam is just. […] Man, he’s Adam Copeland. […] He was very giving, and we had such a blast in there.”
Now that he’s back in WWE, Aleister Black is without his House of Black teammates for the first time in years. Whether he chases singles gold in the Stamford-based company remains to be seen.
alt=”Jacob Terrell” height=”72″ width=”72″>
Edited by Jacob Terrell
