During a recent appearance on “The Masked Man Show,” Aleister Black addressed speculation about his status in AEW, dismissing rumors that he’s unhappy with the company or unwilling to be pinned or take losses.
Black also pushed back on claims that injuries — or a history of being frequently injured — have kept him off television, stating that those reports are inaccurate.
You can check out some highlights from the podcast below:
On fans speculating he wasn’t being used due to a back injury: “There was a time where I was working with WWE where I had a back injury. The back injury kind of came and left, came and left. Then, there was a time around the time when I was in AEW that I wasn’t utilized as much. There was nothing really going on, that’s just the way it was booked. I don’t control that. I made this post about me doing deadlifts. I was wearing really funny shoes, they were lifting shoes, but they looked like church shoes. Someone is making jokes about it. It was a post about me finally being able to deadlift again. This was a post where I talked about, ‘I had this back injury three months ago. We finally got the vertebrae right back again, so I can finally deadlift.’ I made that post and within months, weeks, days, maybe, everyone is like, ‘Aleister Black back injury. This is why he’s not being utilized.’ I was like, ‘Guys, this is about me not having a back injury.’ This post was literally three months after the back injury was done.”
On Tony Khan being adamant about booking him in six-man tag team bouts: “To this day, that narrative about, ‘his injuries,’ I’m not really that injured. Number one, Tony (Khan) was very adamant about us being in six-mans, which is fine, it’s his company. If he wants me to wear a clown suit, then that’s what we’ll do. I think people really like to run with the narrative and I don’t know why. I think it’s partially, ‘This is not the role we want him to be in, so we’re going to give a narrative that makes us have an understanding as to why he’s not being put in singles competition.’”
On missing one TV taping due to a knee injury: “Also, something, I had a knee injury at one point and missed one week of taping. That became, ‘Oh, he always had back injuries, he always has knee injuries.’ I’m absolutely fine. There is nothing going on. Yeah, I had a back injury at one point. If it had continued, at one point, I was afraid it would get really bad and would take me out. Luckily, it didn’t. It was manageable, we rehabbed it, and everything was fine. For some reason, to this day, people still run with that narrative because I wasn’t on TV as much. That is literally because we weren’t utilized that way. That’s just what it was. There was no grand scheme or grand agenda. No conspiracy. It’s just the way we were used and that’s it.”
On the notion that he was coasting in his matches in AEW: “If you look at the pay-per-view matches that we did, we always knocked it out of the park. When we had these six-man matches, it was against local talent. Nothing against local talent, but the object was, ‘We want you guys to run through these guys.’ Cool. If you have five and five on TV as a segment, there are six people in that match, let’s say we have a higher profile six-man tag, everybody wants to get something in and at one point, especially with me and Buddy, we kind of took a backseat so we could get Brody in front of the spotlight because people didn’t know Brody that well. We let him take the reins in these things. It becomes this thing where people want to desperately have a narrative. ‘He never wanted to be in AEW.’ That’s completely false. That’s absolutely not true. I had a great time in AEW. I had a lot of fun. Did I do everything that I wanted to do? No, but that’s okay. At the end of the day, that’s not my company and I don’t have any say.”
On why the idea of him refusing to job to people doesn’t make sense: “It’s the same way, ‘He didn’t want to lay down for people.’ If you really think that I have so much pull in the company that I can say who I’m not going up against or lay down against, you think I’m not going to vouch for myself or put myself in the main events? You think I’m going to politic, ‘I’m not going to lay down for this person.’ It doesn’t make sense. Now, I know how that came to life. It’s not something I’m not going to speak on because it’s part of a grander thing in wrestling that affects more people. Because I know what it is now, and who it was, I’m just going, ‘Well, that’s a shame.’
“I don’t like that, for a big part, has been a running narrative because I’ve always loved wrestling and I still love wrestling, and I loved being in AEW. My match with Adam Copeland was one of the funnest things I’ve done in wrestling. At the end of it, I made a calculated business decision and I looked at what I wanted to do, where I wanted to do it, and how I wanted to do it. This is where my wife [Zelina Vega] was. Listening to option A and what they wanted, option B and what they wanted, and I picked the one that, business-wise, made sense for me. I feel I had a lot left to do here and on this side, what they wanted me to do, that didn’t completely align with what I want to do, so I’m going to go the other route.”
During a recent appearance on “The Masked Man Show,” inaugural WWE Women’s United States Champion Chelsea Green voiced her frustration over the title not being featured at WWE SummerSlam 2025.
Instead, current champion Giulia is set to defend the title against former champion Zelina Vega later tonight on WWE SmackDown.
You can check out some highlights from the podcast below:
On the Women’s US Title not being defended at SummerSlam: “It definitely makes me upset. I feel like I really put in work with that title. When I first got that title, I did not stop working. I won it before Christmas, I worked through Christmas and literally every single day until I dropped the title. So, it does make me upset. I feel like I laid the groundwork for this title to mean something and unfortunately we’ve taken a step back from that but that’s not the girls fault.”
On there being so much good wrestling on TV right now: “That’s just a fact that there’s so much good wrestling right now that we don’t even know how to fit in on TV. Am I making excuses, yes. Because you can always fit something on TV. You saw me lose, even though I had that title for like four months straight. I didn’t even win a match and I was only on TV maybe two to three minutes every week, but it was still there and being shown. I do make sure that every time Giulia shows up at TV, I hype her up. She should still feel amazing for holding that title, whether it’s being used on TV and being defended or not. I do feel like we could do more with it.”
On Giulia: “She’s such an amazing wrestler, she’s insane. She’s so good. I do feel like there’s something there, I feel like she should feud with Zelina but like really feud, like really give us something to tune into. I would be okay feuding with her but I’ve said this before, let me not continue to put my hands where it doesn’t belong. We’re two champions removed from me, let her have her moment because I already know people keep talking about my reign with the title because we haven’t really seen much since. Poor Zelina had to feud with me until the end of time, until she lost the title. I just think that Giulia has the platform to possibly have girls come up from NXT or Raw or bring girls in that haven’t been working to feud with her. I just hope we can do that.”
As WWE gears up for SummerSlam 2025 at MetLife Stadium, the company has been holding talent tryouts in New Jersey, welcoming a mix of independent standouts like Ben Bishop and Eli Knight, alongside collegiate wrestlers such as Jha’Quan Anderson and Jeffrey Jacome.
On Friday, WWE shared a video on social media featuring John Cena addressing the group. Speaking candidly, Cena offered straightforward advice, emphasizing the importance of being reliable, coachable, and genuinely invested in the work. His message was clear – those hoping to make it in WWE must approach the opportunity with seriousness and professionalism. He said,
“You can be reliable, you can be coachable, and you can be f**king interested. Those three things, they better your existence here. You might not be on the WrestleMania poster, but you sure as hell have bettered your odds of being part of the event. But, if you are uninterested, uncoachable, and unreliable, this is the first and last time we talk. I want to wish you the best in the rest of your tryout, your journey doesn’t have to end here. The great thing about our business is there’s many ways to get to the top.”
Undisputed WWE Champion @JohnCena gives advice to a group of WWE hopefuls at the #SummerSlam weekend tryouts. 🙏 pic.twitter.com/I2aJ6lszHt
— WWE (@WWE) August 1, 2025
(h/t – Fightful)
