AEW star Malakai Black recently appeared on the AEW Unrestricted podcast as he talked about why scripted promos (in WWE) didn’t work for him during his tenure there, along with working with actress Rosario Dawson on a prior episode of Dynamite. You can check out some highlights from the podcast below:
Malakai Black on working with Rosario Dawson on Dynamite: “That was brought up almost at the beginning of us doing this because there was talk and debate of him wanting to bring in someone like a Hollywood name and through the connections he had, it was Rosario Dawson. I think she is a phenomenal actress and I think she’s great. I was pretty excited for that. Incredibly kind lady. Fit right in with our band of misfits. She was great. I told her, ‘When I’m out there, just look at me as if I just slapped your mom,’ and her face changed and I was like, ‘That’s it. That’s the look.’ It was a very cool experience. She was ecstatic. She absolutely loved it. She had a great time backstage and a great time on TV. Me and Cody really beat the shit out of each other. That was definitely one of the hardest brawls I’ve ever had. As short as it was, me and Cody, despite the interaction so far at this point being limited, every time we got physical, we got physical. Rosario jumped right into that because I had to tuck my chin, but she came in and synched it in. I was like, ‘Okay, that’s what we’re doing today, huh?’ It’s the excitement of TV and it’s new. She did really well. She was very thankful and very appreciative. She had a great time and her family had a great time.”
On why scripted promos don’t work for him or his character: “The biggest hurdle, to this day, is being able to translate what I read on a sheet – thank God that AEW doesn’t do this. The biggest plus for me with AEW is there are not scripted promos. There are ideas. That works for me. Back in NXT, they initially tried to script me, and I was like, it just doesn’t compute. I have to translate everything and can’t remember it. If you tell me, ‘Talk about this, talk about that, mention this,’ that I can do. So, as I progressed, my promos got better. It’s hard for me to convey and memorize, but if you just allow me to talk, I can do that. I can talk from the heart of this character. My biggest hurdle is translating in my head. If we’re having a conversation like this, I can have that conversation because I can answer from the heart of the character. But if you’re like, ‘Hey, we’re saying this, and you’re saying this,’ it doesn’t stick in my head. I have to have an organic way of communicating with people, whether that is from the character itself or from me. It’s organic, action, reaction. I can do that. The conveying of written down promos takes away the authenticity or the emotion I want to try to convey because I can’t react in an organic way. That has always been my greatest hurdle. But now that I have the ‘go out there and have fun,’ it’s not a problem for me. It’s been one of my biggest wins personally.
(h/t – 411 Wrestling)
