AEW: Backstage Update on Malakai Black AEW Future, Maria Kanellis Reportedly Signed New Short-Term Deal, More News

Malakai Black AEW Status & Future Update

As noted before, Malakai Black is currently believed to be finishing up with AEW and expected to leave the company. Online speculation of Black being finished with AEW originated following Will Ospreay’s post-match speech to Buddy Matthews at this past Wednesday’s AEW Dynamite show that involved Ospreay praising Matthews and encouraging him to leave House of Black.

Fightful Select’s Sean Ross Sapp reported that his sources provided an update on Black’s current contract status with AEW.

Sapp reported that Black is not expected to return to AEW. Sapp also reported that Black’s profile is still currently listed on AEW’s official roster page as of the time of his report.

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Maria Kanellis Reportedly Signed New Short-Term Deal

Maria Kanellis has been out of action for AEW and Ring of Honor since this past Summer due to a mass was discovered on her adrenal gland this past July and underwent surgery this past October for retroperitoneoscopic adrenalectomy. Kanellis’ contract with AEW was set to expire at the end of this past October.

Fightful Select reported that their sources stated that Kanellis and AEW officials recently agreed to a new short-term contract extension that runs through January.

It was reported that an official announcement had been intended to be made regarding Kanellis’ new contract extension but never ended up happening for currently unknown reasons.

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AEW News & Notes

Fightful Select’s Sean Ross Sapp reported that his sources stated that AEW EVP of Global Productions Mike Mansury recently returned to the company following him taking some time off this past December.

AEW recently released a new video featuring Harley Cameron performing a song about her upcoming match against “The Glamour” Mariah May at this Saturday’s AEW Collision show in Athens, Georgia.

Sting filed a new trademark for “Old Man Sting” on January 7th for wrestling and merchandise-related purposes to the United States Patent and Trademark Office.

The debut trailer for an upcoming new horror film titled Dark Match was recently released. This upcoming new film featured Chris Jericho among the cast. The official synopsis for the film states “A group of wrestlers find out just how real wrestling can get when they become the guests of honor at a match held by Satanists.”

AEW recently released several new AEW x DC crossover shirts for Will Ospreay, Toni Storm, Swerve Strickland, and Orange Cassidy on their ShopAEW online store.

Taya Valkyrie recently announced on Twitter that herself and her husband Johnny TV are currently safe but they had to evacuate from their home in Los Angeles due to the on-going devastating wildfires in the area. Valkyrie stated “We’ve been evacuated, but are safe. Holy sh*t this is bad. Pray for LA.”

In a recent interview with Fightful, Darby Allin gave his thoughts about potentially wrestling at AEW’s Grand Slam: Australia event next month in Brisbane, Australia. Allin stated “You know, that’s the thing is everybody’s like, ‘What are you going to jump off of at Wembley?’ I’m like, ‘The commission is so strong. They won’t let me do anything.’ But I don’t know what the commission is like in Australia. I have no idea. I don’t know if the commission’s rocking, then I’m rocking.” (Transcript h/t: Fightful.com)

In a recent episode of the Grilling JR podcast, co-host Jim Ross gave his thoughts about Kenny Omega’s recent return from diverticulitis to AEW. Ross stated “He’s the best in-ring talent now that [Bryan Danielson] is on the sideline, taking a sabbatical, and maybe a long-term sabbatical, hell, I don’t know. I think he’s the next in line, I would think, and getting a healthy Kenny Omega back on your roster and back on your television show is a good thing. I think he elevates everybody else’s work, because nobody wants to get in the ring with Kenny and look bad, and he’s going to have a good match no matter what. So, I’m glad he’s back. I like Kenny. He sent me a nice text on my birthday, and he’s just a good human being in my estimation. So him coming back is good timing for Tony Khan.” (Transcript h/t: Fightful.com)

In a recent interview with the Talk Is Jericho podcast, MxM Collection’s Mason Madden & Mansoor gave their thoughts about them joining AEW. Madden stated “We thought for sure, we were like, ‘Well, the only other place we can make money in this business is AEW, let’s switch it up. Let’s be something we think AEW would like.’ We got new gear made, we wanted to stick together because we felt like that was our appeal, our chemistry and the fact that we were the only tag team that stuck together post-release in that class. We were like, ‘Yeah, let’s stick together but let’s be a little bit more of ourselves.’ We’ll kind of tone it down, way down.” Mansoor responded stating “I think the intention was to prove to the audience that watches independent promotions that we can go. I think there was no doubt in anyone’s mind that we could portray larger than life characters or cut promos, but as far as bell-to-bell, what can these guys do?” Madden responded stating “We had never had a match on TV longer than four minutes [laughs]. We definitely outpaced our WWE match time in like a month in AEW.” Mansoor also gave his thoughts about how they won over AEW CEO Tony Khan with their ring work. Mansoor stated “Honestly, we won over Tony because he didn’t know that we could wrestle. He had no clue. I think he brought us in as these guys, well, there’s a million great wrestlers in AEW, there’s no shortage of the best wrestlers, we have the best wrestlers in the world. But what can these guys do in terms of entertainment and you know, bringing the live crowd on their feet with something crazy and something different. But the fact that we were able to marry the two in our first couple of matches — I mean our first match on AEW television was FTR. To Tony’s testament, what a genius move, what a contrast of styles. No other team could have made us look as real to ourselves as possible as FTR. In that match, they were so serious and down to earth wrestlers. I was jumping into his arms like Scooby-Doo. Once we had that match and got the ball rolling, we were getting trusted to have these two segment matches where it was going at a pace where the crowds were really getting into it, as well as entertaining people with our antics, we were off to the races.” (Transcript h/t: Fightful.com)