Malakai Black commented on how the Covid-19 pandemic negatively affected his career in WWE during an appearance on the Universal Wrestling Podcast:
“The pandemic was obviously not good for me at all and I’ve always been told that the reason why is because Vince [McMahon] could not gauge because he didn’t have an audience. We come in with this raw style but then we were guided to be smart about how the structure of like…how the match structure would like be more presented and more potent, basically. That’s why me and Buddy [Matthews] were like, I think one of the few first…again, with the Tommaso’s [Ciampa] the [Johnny] Gargano’s, etc., that had a hybrid style of coming with that high impact indie style with the blend of traditional pro wrestling and storytelling and TV wrestling.”
“I feel that’s what made us stand apart because it was exciting and dynamic and it was a little bit different and then like I said when the pandemic hit, I was always told the reason why the booking was the way it was is because Vince was just going ‘I don’t know who’s over or not, I don’t know who’s getting a good reaction, I don’t know because the ratings are doing all this’. I don’t know, he couldn’t like track it and that made him really frustrated. Which is understandable because obviously, prior to that, I was a very well…at least, maybe well is not the right word but I was in a position where I was actually being pushed more up the ladder. I really think that the pandemic era did so much damage and not just for me, but for like ya know, people like you and for a lot of people because it was hard all around.”
(quotes courtesy of WrestlingInc.com)
