Malakai Black personally requested AEW to work with this up-and-coming star

AEW star Malakai Black seems very picky when it comes to who he wants to corrupt in All Elite Wrestling, but one young man's talents can't be ignored.

The young man in question is Dante Martin, who has had a unique run in AEW thus far. Ideally, he would have liked to have teamed up with his brother Darius more often, but due to Darius being on the shelf for so long, Dante has broken through as a singles competitor in All Elite Wrestling.

Dante challenged Hangman Page for the AEW World Championship in March 2022, Scorpio Sky for the TNT Championship in June 2022, and even crossed paths with Malakai Black early into his solo run.

This short feud with Martin was requested by Black himself, as he explained in an interview for "Knotfest." The former NXT Superstar wanted to give Dante something he hadn't dealt with previously.

“Top Flight, I love those boys, very very unique, that’s also one of the reasons why I requested to work with Dante [Martin] at the time because I knew I could have—I could give him something he hadn’t had prior to that and that was someone slowing him down and forcing him to sell, but also showing him some etiquette stuff and he did absolutely great, a lot of potential in that kid." [1:28:38-1:29:01]

Malakai elaborated by saying that while he knows Dante Martin has a lot of potential, it's down to Dante himself whether he can live up to the lofty expectations put on him.

"It’s up to him what he does with it. I said in an interview at the time as well I think he can be absolutely one of the better ones, but it comes down to what he does with it. You can only give someone a candle, they have to strike the match and light it up, you can’t do that for them.” [1:29:02-1:29:24]

Malakai Black wasn't the only one who had their eye on Dante Martin when they crossed paths

The one and only singles match to date between Malakai Black and Dante Martin took place on the October 16th, 2021 edition of Dynamite, where Black ended up picking up the victory.

While Malakai Black wanted to give Dante something he hadn't had before, another group of men in AEW were trying to give the 21-year-old something too: a place in their faction.

The group was Team Taz, who was trying to recruit Dante towards the back end of 2021. However, Dante turned them down, instead choosing to listen to like-minded veterans like Lio Rush and Matt Sydal, which, judging by his potential, seems to have been the right move.

Are you a fan of Dante Martin? Let us know in the comments section down below!

Please credit "Knotfest" and give a H/T to Sportskeeda Wrestling when using quotes from this article.