This Money in the Bank match will be like no other we’ve seen. The men’s and women’s competitors will try to work their way up from the ground floor of WWE Headquarters at the same time in hope of grabbing the briefcase hanging on the roof that holds a contract for a world championship match.
Aleister Black, who will attempt to become Mr. Money in the Bank for the first time, tries his hand at some Q&A with The Post’s Joseph Staszewski ahead of Sunday’s pay-per-view (7 p.m., WWE Network).
(Edited for length and clarity)
Q: This is going to be a unique Money in the Bank ladder match. What do you expect from this concept and how do you see it looking and feeling?
A; So, without sounding too obvious, we’re in a unique time in mankind’s history. I feel the WWE has done a very good job in still trying to create entertainment and also to keep us very safe. This kind of plays into it because the setting is obviously very different because it’s the WWE headquarters. It’s completely abandoned. There’s no one there. It’s the most unique thing I’ve ever been involved in. I really can’t think of anything when it comes to my career that adds up to something that’s this different.
I think the current situation we’re in kind of gives birth to concepts like this, but not only this but we had the Boneyard match, we had The Fiend and John Cena in the Firefly Fun House match. This is something that falls in line with that. We’re still trying to portray entertainment. We’re still trying to give entertainment to fans without compromising ourselves too much.
It’s just a cool concept. I don’t know if they are going to bring it back every year, but definitely in the time frame we are right now, it’s a welcome change.
Q: Have you ever fought on the roof of a building before?
A: (Laughs) No I have not.
Q: It feels like fewer and fewer wrestlers get a slow, kind of deliberate build and it feels like your character has gotten that on the main roster. Have you liked that you haven’t been rushed?
A: Yeah, I do. It sometimes goes hand in hand with a little bit of frustration because sometimes you want to go faster than what they’re allowing you to. But it has made sure that the audience has got really familiar with Aleister Black.
Q: With that, it feels like your finisher, Black Mass, is pretty well protected. Is that important to the character for you that it’s kind of a once-I-hit-this-it’s-over feel?
A: For me it was important that with the character that I portray that I was effective, efficient because if I said all these things and every single time I’d have a match and all my offense would be countered or ducked or people would kick out of my moves left and right, then the character in contrast to my offense wouldn’t make sense.
That’s why I wanted the Black Mass spinning heal kick to be, if I hit that in most given circumstances, like 95 percent of the time, that’s it, end of story. That’s how I wanted the audience to be conditioned as well.
Q: You got to work opposite your wife Zelina Vega a little in NXT. What’s it been like being set up weekly across from her now on Raw lately?
A: She’s super professional and I think we’d like to think we’re both really professionals. It’s just going to work and we play your characters on TV and however we are in private life is what we are in private life. Once we get to work, we got to work and it’s go time. For me, it doesn’t do anything specifically. I think the outside world is more fascinated by the fact that me and my wife are competing against each other than we are ourselves.
Q: Would you want to be on the same side with her at some point and have you talked about what you’d want that to look like if it did happen?
A: I have no interest in having my wife as my manager and I don’t think she has to because it would be kind of cliché. It’s almost in the line of expectations where it’s like, oh of course you’re going to put them together, and I don’t want that. I don’t think that I necessarily need my wife or my wife needs me on screen because clearly my wife is doing a phenomenal job. She’s basically been the head of Raw for the last two, three weeks.
I’d like to carve out my own path, which I’ve been doing very well for the last couple of weeks. Maybe in the future, you know, if they come up with something good and something we would both agree on, who knows. I’ll never say never, but as I’m looking at it right now, no.
Q: What was your reaction to the WWE layoffs that happened a couple of weeks ago?
A: Very sad. I was as in shock as everyone else. Obviously the entire world is going through similar things and unfortunately WWE didn’t come out unscathed. I just hope by the end of all this I get to see a lot of those faces, a lot of my friends back. I know the entire company hopes that. Everybody hopes everything goes back to normal sooner rather than later.
Q: You’ve talked in the past about being kind of reclusive and not always being able to connect with people. Where does that stem from for you?
A: It’s just the way that I grew up. I’ve always had a little bit of a difficulty understanding other people to the point where I was better off doing my own thing, better off being by myself. I’ve always been kind of a loner. I’ve never had like many friends, I’ve had a few. It’s just something that’s in my character, in my personality.
Q: How did that translate into the Aleister Black character?
A: A lot of stuff with this is real life. The occult stuff, I grew up having a fascination about world religion and that fascination grew into other religions and other things and I kind of dabbled my way into the occult and started reading about the occult. I used a lot of that stuff as well. It’s unique, it’s mystique. A lot of people don’t understand it and I can use it to my advantage.
Q: You mentioned your view of religion. It’s obviously not the traditional one. How would you explain your view to someone?
A: I’m an atheist. I don’t have a religion.
Q: Where did that stem from?
My mom was Roman Catholic, my dad was part of … It would be hard to explain what my dad was a part of. It was a deeply rooted religion that was borderline … let’s say it was a very strict religion and it wasn’t the most caring and loving religion in the world. So I saw what that did to my dad and it kind of made me think and it kind of made me wonder because it was a big difference between my mom and my dad in that sense.
That’s kind of why it gained my interest because on one hand I have this very open, welcoming religion in the Roman Catholics and on the other hand I have this like doomsday, end-of-the-world type religion which is very strict, very cut and dry, very bleak. I didn’t understand the difference between the two because I always thought they [religion] did the same thing.
That sparked my interest, so I started reading and reading and reading and that’s how I kind of bounced through all these different religions that were there. I kind of drew the conclusion that for me, religion was just not for me. My conclusion was that for me it would come down to understanding that I’d feel more comfortable with the idea … not even comfortable with … but find more true in a scientific approach than there was in a theistic approach.
Q: I read as a kid you were afraid of the dark?
A: Yeah.
Q: How does one overcome that to become this character who is associated with darkness?
A: When you’re a kid and your parents tell you you can’t play with fire, what are you gonna do?
Staszewski: You’re gonna play with fire.
Like when I was telling you about the religious conflict that I had, how my mom was raised, and how my dad was raised, what did I do? I started reading up about it because I wanted to understand. Same as the whole thing, why am I afraid of the dark? Why do I have these weird embedded fears in me that make no rational sense? Why do I have that? Probably because I read a lot about the occult and that was really freaking me out. Because it’s not really normal for a 9-year-old to be reading about conspiracy theories and stuff like that. But as soon as I started rationalizing things I was able to overcome why I’m afraid of the dark. And then I started understanding that if I use that, because other people must feel this way too that, I can use that in my character.
Q: For someone who’s maybe not used to letting in the outside people, I know you and Zelina started a YouTube channel. What’s that experience been like?
A: There’s a part of me that’s still kind of conflicted on it. I like it, but at the same time sometimes it goes through my head as like, is this really what I feel comfortable with? It’s not even anything that’s done or said that is negative. I’m just not used to letting people in. But it’s also something we live in 2020 and it is a different age and it is a different era so maybe this is also me kind of adjusting to that because I’ve put that stuff off for so long.
I still don’t think that a lot of social media stuff is for me, but it makes her happy. She has a lot of fun doing it so if I can be a part of that and make that experience for her more pleasant, then I’ll gladly do it.
Q: You have been a part of a lot of these taped [Raw] shows and closed-set shows. What’s that experience been like working with the precautions the company’s put in place?
A: In the beginning it was kind of tricky in the sense that, like, you don’t really know what to expect. You get there and it’s not more than two people at the same time in the entrance section. We get our temperature check, we go through the entire medical screening before we can enter the building. We’re completely covered up until the point where we have to compete and when we compete there is limited crew, social distancing is practiced. Obviously for us, being in the ring it’s slightly different.
It took a while to kind of get used to it, but once we got there and now we know how to roll with the punches, it’s just going to work.
Q: What would winning Money in the Bank mean for you?
A: It would mean to elevate the platform of Aleister Black. It would mean that I could spread my wings even further. It would mean that I have embedded myself into the status and legacy of what the WWE is and the history of the WWE because obviously Money in the Bank has been a big part of the WWE for quite a few years now. It would be nice to be a part of all the Money in the Bank winners.