Malakai Black Shares Who Came Up With Idea For Him To Feud With Cody Rhodes In AEW

Malakai Black recently spoke with Alex McCarthy of talkSPORT about a wide range of topics. 

During it, the AEW star shared it was an idea by Tony Khan for him to feud with Cody Rhodes when he first joined the company. 

“It was Tony [Khan’s] idea, in line with Cody,” Black revealed. “No big deal, compete against one of the best wrestlers in the world, one of the biggest names, biggest lineages in the world of pro wrestling, and someone who’s in charge of a big part of that company. No pressure [laughs]. I have a tremendous amount of respect for Cody.

“It wasn’t about pinfalls for me, it was about how far I could push Cody,” Malakai Black said. “The guy who would have usually reached the ropes was stomping me in the face. Or the guy who in the beginning wouldn’t have thought about putting me through a table because he’s too much of a guy that plays by the rules, he put me through the table.”

Black noted the idea of the storyline was to change Rhodes’ character. 

“There’s a lot of stuff I made him do that he wouldn’t have necessarily done initially. It’s like I almost did a little too good of a job… I think he will intertwine for the duration of my journey in AEW, which I hope is a very long period for me. I’m just scratching the surface,” Black explained. “I don’t think I’ll ever totally get rid of Cody, but I also don’t want to get rid of Cody.”