Vince McMahon saw the next Undertaker in major AEW star, led to his WWE downfall, says former champion (Exclusive)

Former WWE President Vince McMahon often tried to create the next Undertaker while he was still in charge of creative. Former star EC3 has claimed that McMahon saw shades of The Undertaker in AEW star Malakai Black.

Malakai Black, then known as Aleister Black, debuted on WWE's main roster in 2019 after having a great run in NXT. Black had some squash matches against enhancement talents and later had a great feud with Cesaro (aka Claudio Castagnoli). Black also put on some of his best matches against Buddy Murphy. However, his booking took a huge hit heading into 2020. WWE did air some video packages for his much-anticipated return in 2021. After making his return on an episode of SmackDown in May, Black was surprisingly released by the company.

On the recent episode of Sportskeeda's The Wrestling Outlaws podcast, EC3 spoke about how Malakai Black's gimmick in NXT worked as Triple H presented him well. The former WWE star pointed out that Black's direction suffered once he moved to the main roster as Vince McMahon seemingly did not understand his character. EC3 claimed McMahon thought of Black as The Undertaker, which eventually led to his downfall.

"If I could pop into that real fast, would be like, it worked in NXT with Triple H where they treated it as such. That was the time when things got shot up the cannon up the ladder and then they got into his hand. If he saw a parallel to anybody that was maybe seemingly like one of his legacy guys, perhaps The Undertaker that coming out of things like totally different acts, but to Vince and his insane sociopathic mind, he probably just saw it was just The Undertaker and he didn't get it."

He continued further:

"So I think that was the issue with the WWE. And then once that's a lower room for him, he's just another guy and then he's working me on some main event in some six minute crap fest." [5:22 - 6:12]

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Former WWE star Malakai Black is reportedly gone from AEW

In 2021, Malakai Black made a strong impact after his debut in All Elite Wrestling. He was put in a feud with Cody Rhodes and dismantled The American Nightmare. Black would later form The House of Black with Buddy Matthews, Brody King, and Julia Hart and went on to win the AEW World Trios Championship.

However, many questioned why Malakai never won a singles title in the promotion and had very limited singles matches. Some recent reports have also revealed that Malakai Black has finished up with All Elite Wrestling and he is expected to return to WWE.

Fans will have to wait and see if Malakai Black goes back to the Stamford-based promotion in the coming months.

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