According to Sportskeeda ‘s Tom Colohue, Aleister Black’s push could be set to come to an end. While there are fans of the Dutch superstar in the company, Vince McMahon reportedly isn’t sold on the former NXT Champion.
Colohue revealed that the reason for Black’s decline in recent weeks could be down to Paul Heyman being fired as the executive director of Monday Night Raw . Heyman was supposedly a huge fan of the performer, but Black hasn’t been booked strongly since the backstage reshuffling that saw WWE consolidate its creative team.
While Black has been kept strong in defeat due to losing to main event talents such as Seth Rollins — who also needed help from Buddy Murphy to win the match — the boss purportedly doesn’t see him as a top superstar.
“To my knowledge, it is Vince McMahon who has mixed opinions shall we say. Vince added that creek to the entrance when he leverages up and now he has removed the entrance all together. We haven’t seen the Aleister Black entrance in a long time. To put it bluntly, Vince thinks that there’s something missing about Aleister Black. It’s similar to how he feels about Cesaro. Keep an eye on this one because we all know how that went.”
The comparison to Cesaro suggests that McMahon feels that Black lacks charisma. The chairman criticized the Friday Night SmackDown superstar on an episode of Steve Austin’s podcast in 2013, opining that he lacks a connection to the audience.
Cesaro continues to be booked relatively strong as a tag team competitor. If Black is perceived to be in a similar mold as the Swiss wrestler, he can still find some success in the company. He probably just won’t be pushed as a main eventer, even if fans and backstage officials feel he deserves an opportunity.
Black’s matches — especially his recent bouts with Rollins and Murphy — have received critical acclaim since he joined the main roster. If he continues to perform at a high level, there’s a chance he may win the boss over.
Black is still relatively new to the main product as well, and he wouldn’t be the first NXT star not to impress McMahon overnight. Most of the black-and-gold brand’s best talents have found success hard to come by since getting called up.
McMahon is also reportedly set to push some underutilized talents in an effort to create more marquee stars, so there might be opportunities for wrestlers like Black to shine in the coming weeks.