Malakai Black On His Relationships With Paul Heyman & Vince McMahon

During his recent appearance on Chris Jericho’s podcast, Malakai Black discussed his time in WWE and his relationships with Vince McMahon and Paul Heyman. Black appeared on Talk is Jericho and talked about how he got along with both men and how that affected his time in WWE. You can check out a couple of highlights from the discussion below.

Malakai Black on his relationship with Paul Heyman and Heyman’s time in charge of Raw: “Since day one, me and Paul meshed. I love that man. I have so much love for that man. He’s always been really good to me. He’s been blunt with me, which I appreciate. I appreciate people being blunt with me. I don’t like to dance around subjects, just tell me how it is … especially in this business.

“Paul had big ideas. Not just with me, but with a lot of younger people, like Buddy Murphy being one of them as well. 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. Then everything became — well, maybe a fight is not the right word but a debate. Which I can understand, but sometimes it makes you wonder.”

On his relationship with Vince McMahon: “Since day one, Vince was always very fond of me. I’ve had good conversations with him, always. But I definitely think that there was a moment where Vince was like, ‘I don’t know what to do with this guy.’ And every time I tried to say, ‘Well, why don’t we do this?’ [He would say] ‘Yeah, maybe, maybe, maybe.’

“I think Vince was very keen on figuring it out himself. But I think he never did, and I think that is kind of what put the nail in the coffin. And then when we did the the Dark Father vignettes, which he approved, which he loved — I was only supposed to be off for six to eight weeks. I was supposed to come back to the Royal Rumble. This Dark Father thing was supposed to speed up, and then it turned into seven months.”

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