Aleister Black Reveals the Match That Started His Wrestling Fandom

Aleister Black recently revealed the moment that he developed an interest in professional wrestling as a kid. Black and Zelina Vega recently appeared in Nightcap, and during the conversation the former WWE star revealed that it was a quick flash of a Yokozuna match that sparked his love of the business.

Black also talked about how martial arts helped pave the way for his career and how he never thought early on that he would get to WWE. You can check out the highlights below:

On How He Fell In Love With Wrestling:

“Well — so here is no wrestling in the Netherlands. So I remember, I was four or five years old. And I’m sitting on the couch with my dad, and he’s flipping channels. And we had Eurosport. And Eurosport, for a brief time, had WWF at the time. And he’s flicking through channels, and I see Yokozuna. And [it was] just a brief moment. I’m like, ‘What’s that?’

“And my dad even stops and then he flicked the channel. I’m like, ‘Wait Dad, go back.’ Obviously, he didn’t go back, but for some reason that’s intergrained into my brain.”

On Going From Martial Arts to Wrestling:

“Later on, we had New Japan Pro Wrestling on TV. So I divulged… and I saw two guys fighting in a ring. I grew up in the ’80s and the ’90s, so I grew up with like Bloodsport and Best of the Best, so all these action movies. So I’m thinking, ‘This is fighting.’ So my parents put me on karate, they put me on judo, they put me on Muay Thai. And obviously by the age of nine, I knew the difference between martial arts and pro wrestling. But then when I was 15, I had the opportunity to turn into pro wrestling, did that, and then my main style became Muay Thai and kickboxing as my influence. And so one helped the other become a wrestler.”

On If He Ever Thought He’d End Up In WWE:

“No. No. No, absolutely not. I often joke, saying like, ‘We had to create the mountains to climb over to become a wrestler, so we had to make them first. So no, I didn’t even think that I was ever going to get out of Europe. And never coming out the Netherlands — maybe Germany? And then I just kind of kept pushing and pushing and pushing. So yeah — no, never.”

If you use any of the quotes in this article, please credit Nightcap with a h/t to 411mania.com for the transcription.