The House of Black is at full force now that Brody King and Buddy Matthews have joined Malakai Black in All Elite Wrestling. King arrived in AEW in January, whereas Matthews debuted on the February 23 episode of AEW Dynamite. Both men aligned with Black as soon as they became “All Elite”, so the members of the trio are inherently tied together.
In an interview with Click Orlando, Black, who has been with AEW since last July, described how his vision for the stable came to him during the early portion of his feud with Cody Rhodes. Once he noticed that the idea had some traction with fans, he leaned into his comfort zone to begin the formation of the House of Black.
“I coined this idea, the House of Black, and it was actually kind of incidental,” said Black. “It happened during my interaction with Cody and the start of my path in AEW where I think in week two or week three, I laid Cody out on the ramp and I kneeled down and I told him, ‘Welcome to the House of Black.’ And that transpired with fans, and I saw it popping up online, and I kinda went like, this is starting to take a life a little bit, so there might be more to this. And obviously a lot of times, fans dictate the path that you take. It’s like we listen to what they say and we listen to what they want, and you adjust accordingly.
“Now I always had this idea because even prior to being a member of AEW, I’m taking it back, I’ve been in wrestling 22 years, but let’s take it back 13-14 years, I was in factions that would have similar vibes. I was in factions that basically had a vibe like this. So I was no stranger to this and it’s completely my comfort zone.”
Do we have a new member of the #HouseOfBlack?!
Tune in to #AEWDynamite LIVE on @TBSNetwork right now! pic.twitter.com/KS6Xjo7WEN— All Elite Wrestling (@AEW) February 24, 2022
Black then recalled how he pitched the idea, including the people he had in mind, to AEW CEO/GM Tony Khan, who “loved” it. From there, Black and Khan collaborated on finding the best way to turn the pitch into a reality. The faction’s leader also pointed out the differences between King and Matthews and the distinct ways both men were teased ahead of their debuts.
“I started coining this idea, and I had a conversation with the man in charge and I basically said, ‘Look this is what I’m thinking. These people are what I’m thinking, how do you feel about it?’ And he loved the idea. And it became a collaboration between myself and Tony where we would have several meetings in regards to what vision I had, and he would add on to the vision. And slowly but surely, I had different approaches for Brody, I had different approaches for Buddy because obviously in their own respect, two very different individuals coming from two very different places, and are known for two very different things.
“So there’s a way psychologically to approach fans in regards to letting them understand what it is that they actually want and where one was more of something I would repeatedly feed to them through social media, through promos, through matches, through things that I would say, where the other one was more of a last-minute wait, is that? And then give it to them.”
One week after Matthews’ debut, Black called this chapter of the stable’s formation “a massive success” and referenced the way it generated a lot of excitement, both in the immediate aftermath of the former Buddy Murphy’s arrival and in the response he’s seen over the past few days.
“It was a very meticulous way of like approaching Brody and Matthews to bring them to the foreground and in both cases, a massive success,” said Black. “So the target that we tried to reach was what we actually reached in terms of what we did on TV, how the reaction was afterwards. Because we have to tie social media into a lot of things nowadays in terms of trending and how big the reach of it was, and even now how many people are still talking about it.
“So a lot of planning, a lot of thinking, but the good thing is because I had these prior iterations as to how I wanted to do this, I had a lot of experience with bringing this to life, which helped me a lot.”
Together, there’s no telling how far Black, Matthews, and King can go, but it seems like they have a bright future in AEW.
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