Malakai Black was one of the talents Paul Heyman tried to push during his time as the Executive Director of Monday Night Raw. Though he got lost in the shuffle not long after Heyman was removed from the position.
The former NXT champion discussed his relationship with Heyman during a recent appearance on Talk Is Jericho and claimed that they ‘meshed’ from day one.
Talking about Heyman’s run as the Executive Director of Raw, Black claimed that the former ECW owner told him that he only had ‘one night of control’ over things:
“He once told me that he had one night of control. That was the first night he was on, and after that, everything became a fight. Well, maybe ‘a fight’ is not the right word but a debate, which I can understand, but sometimes it makes you wonder.”
Malakai Black also revealed the plans Paul Heyman had for him and Buddy Murphy, another former WWE talent who Heyman saw as a big future star:
“He’s like, ‘I want to set something up between you and Buddy, that we can come back on WrestleMania in three – four years, maybe five years down the line. We lay a foundation now, and then five years from now, we circle back around,
But we make it bigger. We put it on a bigger stage, and we can draw from what you guys did there.’ It writes itself because that’s how wrestling’s done.”
Paul Heyman was made the Executive Director of Raw back in June 2019. He tried to push young talents as opposed to WWE’s approach of relying on older stars before being relieved of his position in June 2020.