Aleister Black Breaks Silence On WWE Return
One month into his WWE return, Aleister Black says he quickly felt at home despite initial nerves. Black, who departed WWE in 2021 and wrestled for All Elite Wrestling from then until early 2025, made his comeback on the SmackDown after WrestleMania 41.
Speaking with The Atomic Drop newsletter while promoting WWE Clash in Paris, Black discussed his return to WWE.
"I've been thinking about that a lot and I feel like it happened very organically. I think the first day that I came back, like physically being backstage, you know, walking around and talking to people and being quote-unquote reintroduced to the company and stuff like that. It's strange, right?
Because it's like a mixed feeling of nostalgia and familiarity whilst there is something unknown, because obviously as much as the setup is the same, internally, its guts have been like rearranged if that makes sense, because it's no longer the same people in charge, but at the same time, it's the same people that I connected with the first time around."
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"And I remember being very nervous, but then realizing that everything felt the same in the most positive sense and then I was like, why are you so nervous? You know all these people. And then at that point, it was really strange. It was like all my anxiety just kind of dropped.
"And I'm like, yeah, this time around, it's even better, you know what I mean? Because I've always had a good relationship with Triple H, and I get along great with Nick Khan, and the locker room is something that I've always preached about, how fantastic the boys are in WWE."
Aleister Black in a WWE ring
Aleister Black in a WWE ring
"And it just really felt good, it felt like coming home, and I know that sounds somewhat cliché, but I've never experienced that feeling of coming home in that sense, and I think that was the first time I could ever say it felt like coming home and everything made sense again. I was in that system for eight years and it is a completely different system than anything else.
Nothing is like WWE, no locker room I've ever been in, and it just felt like this is what it's supposed to be for me, you know? I was really excited to be back, of course, and like I said initially, it's a little bit anxiety-driven.
But then once you walk around and you get a feel of everything, you'll say to yourself, hey man, you know all these people, you know all this and everybody's just going around doing what they always do and everything is just right, it works, everything runs so smoothly. Then, we get ready for the show, and here we go, rock and roll, everybody's heading in the same direction and that's just a really good feeling."
Last week on SmackDown, Black worked a Triple Threat Money in the Bank qualifying match with LA Knight and Shinsuke Nakamura, which resulted in Knight going over.
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