AEW star opens up on creative freedom under Tony Khan; says his ideas are "not always processed"

There has been a belief that AEW wrestlers have a lot of creative freedom in their characters and storylines. Top star Malakai Black has weighed in on the belief and revealed that Tony Khan always plays a role in the final product.

The leader of the House of Black requested his release from WWE after he was unhappy with the creative on the main roster. Malakai then signed with AEW and has been a part of the promotion since 2021.

During the latest episode of the HardLore Stories podcast, Malakai Black was a special guest and addressed the amount of creative freedom he has in AEW. He mentioned that his ideas are always taken into consideration, but he still has to run them through the higher powers, and thus it is never 100% of his ideas.

“So you said Malakai Black can be who Malakai Black wants to be and that is true to an extent. But I also want people to understand that there is still a cooperation between myself and the powers that be. So my ideas are not always processed the way that I would want to… want them to be created,” Malakai Black said. [01:24:48 - 01:25:03]

Black mentioned that Tony Khan and other officials add in their input as well. But at the end of the day, he has more creative freedom when compared to his time on WWE's main roster.

“I want people to always understand that there is my ideas, there’s Tony’s input, and there’s QT’s input, and together we make… happen what we want to happen. And I’m very happy with that. And it’s definitely allowed me to be me more than I’ve ever been allowed to be myself, especially on the main roster for WWE.” [01:25:04 - 01:25:28].

AEW star Malakai Black says Triple H gave him 100% creative freedom in WWE NXT

While speaking on the same podcast, Black opened up about his run in NXT. He mentioned that Triple H allowed him to do whatever he wanted to do.

The only input the current WWE Chief Content Officer gave him was an idea for the entrance, which also had a tad bit of Black's idea as well. He also mentioned that AEW is a blend of his WWE NXT and main roster run.

“NXT was a different story. NXT, Hunter (Triple H) was very much like, ‘yeah now, do what you want to do’. Aleister was 100% a thing between me and Hunter. I told him what I wanted to do, how I wanted to do it, and what I wanted to present. And he said, ‘I’ve got this idea for an entrance for you, this is what I want to do’... But main roster, obviously a very different story... AEW lies a little bit between what I did with NXT and the main roster.” [01:25:28 - 01:26:05].