Various: Malakai Black on Brody King & Buddy Matthews’ AEW Signings, Trademarks, Indies

Mar 3, 2022

Malakai Black on Talks with Tony Khan to Bring In Brody King & Buddy Matthews to AEW

Click Orlando held a recent interview with Malakai Black. One of the topics discussed included Black revealing the talks he held with AEW CEO Tony Khan over the idea to bring Brody King and Buddy Matthews into AEW.

“I coined this idea of House of Black and it was actually kind of incidental. It happened during my iteration with Cody and the start of my path in AEW where in week two or three, I kneeled down and told him, ‘welcome to the house of black’ and it transpired with fans and started popping up online. I went, ‘this is taking a life a little bit. There might be more to this.’ A lot of times, fans dictate the path you take. We listen to what they want and you adjust accordingly. I always had this idea, even prior to being a member of AEW, I’ve been in wrestling 22 years but taking it back 13 or 14 years, I was in factions that had similar vibes, a vibe like this. I was no stranger to this and it was my comfort zone. I started coining this idea and I had a conversation with the man in charge and said, ‘this is what I’m thinking, these people are who I’m thinking. How do you feel about it?’ 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.
Slowly but surely, I had different approaches for Brody and Buddy because they are different individuals coming from different places and known for different things. There’s a way, psychologically to approach fans in regards to letting them understand what it is that they actually want where one was more something that I would repeatedly feed to them through social media, matches, and promos. The other one was more of a last-minute ‘wait, is that?’ And give it to them. It was a meticulous way of approaching Brody and Buddy to bring them to the foreground. In both cases, a massive success. The target we were trying to reach is what we reached in terms of what we did on TV, the reaction after. In terms of trending and how big the reach was, even now, how many people are still talking about it. A lot of planning and thinking, but because I had prior iterations of how I wanted to do this, I had ideas of how to bring this to life, which helped me a lot.”

Transcript h/t: Fightful.com

WWE & Brandi Rhodes Files New Trademarks

WWE and Brandi Rhodes recently filed several new trademarks to the United States Patent and Trademark Office.

A trademark for “Royal Rumble” was filed by WWE on February 24th for merchandise-related purposes.

A trademark for “WWE Priority Pass” was also filed by WWE on February 24th for wrestling and entertainment-related purposes.

A trademark for “Brandi Rhodes” was filed by Brandi Rhodes on February 24th for merchandise-related purposes.

A trademark for “Shot of Brandi” was also filed by Brandi Rhodes on February 24th for wrestling and entertainment-related purposes.

Misc. Wrestling News & Notes

Control Your Narrative promotion announced that they have recently signed a television deal with Pro Wrestling TV. PWTV is currently scheduled to launch this April as both a linear television channel and On-Demand streaming app.

Westside Xtreme Wrestling recently announced that they have pulled Biff Busick (former Oney Lorcan in WWE) from their upcoming 16 Carat Gold 2022 tournament due to Busick recently testing positive for COVID-19.

New Japan Pro Wrestling recently announced a new match for the card of their NJPW Strong themed Lonestar Shoout event on April 1st in Dallas, Texas:

Jay White vs. “Speedball” Mike Bailey

NJPW also recently announced four new matches for the card of their NJPW Strong Style Evolved event on March 20th in Tampa, Florida:

NJPW Strong Openweight Championship – Clark Connors vs. “Filthy” Tom Lawlor (c)
Fred Rosser & Eddie Kingston vs. Daniel Garcia & Fred Yehi
Yuya Uemura vs. Buddy Matthews
Rocky Romero & Wheeler YUTA vs. J.R. Kratos & Black Tiger

West Coast Pro recently announced a new match for the card of their Game Related event on May 15th in San Francisco, California:

Minoru Suzuki vs. Kevin Blackwood

Game Changer Wrestling recently announced two new matches for the card of their Joey Janela’s Spring Break 6 Part 2 event on April 1st in Dallas, Texas:

Minoru Suzuki vs. EFFY
Chris Dickinson vs. Matt Cardona

GCW also recently announced three new matches for the card of their Astronaut event on March 12th in Atlanta, Georgia:

GCW Tag Team Championship – Second Gear Crew (Mance Warner & Matthew Justice) vs. H8 Club (Matt Tremont & Nick Gage) (c)
ACH vs. Tony Deppen
Matt Cardona vs. Mike Jackson

Impact Wrestling recently announced a new match for the card of their Sacrifice 2022 event on March 5th in Louisville, Kentucky: