Aleister Black was Lilian Garcia’s guest on this week’s Chasing Glory podcast. The former NXT Champion opened up on a myriad of topics including the dark origins of the Aleister Black name and his thoughts on religion.
His Thoughts On Social Media:
My opinion on social media has changed quite a bit in the last two or three years. My social media is very strict to my character and I’ve disabled comments on a lot of things because why would the Aleister Black character care about comments? I don’t feel that social media is very important to me as a human being anymore. I don’t care about it as much anymore because people nowadays use it to wield damage and it’s become a very negative thing. I just wish that people realized that that is not real life. Not connecting with actual human beings is gonna affect you later on in life. If you’re 13 or 14 year old and all you do is sit behind your Facebook and look at things that aren’t real – because a lot of people on social media aren’t real – we’re setting such a poor example for this younger generation on what a life should be like and everything is all about jokes, all about bullying, all about harassing and it’s all funny because it’s all glorified. It’s almost like if you’re not cynical, you’re not one of the pack. If you’re not harmfully trying to embarrass someone else, you don’t belong. Everyone’s cynical. I feel that’s what social media has done. It’s made people cynical. My attitude toward social media has become way more disdain…..it’s creating such a disconnect with the entire human race.
On Whether He Sees Himself As The Modern Version Of The Undertaker:
No. I understand people think that because there’s a certain element of me that has darkness, but there’s only one Undertaker and I could never never fill that void and there’s only one Aleister Black and I’m the first one. There will never be a second one. The legacy that Undertaker has made is – I don’t even know how to put it in words. He changed the landscape. Is Undertaker indirectly responsible for Aleister Black? Sure because he opened the door for darker characters. He was the first one to really take it to that level and allowed an audience to see something that wasn’t so clean and cut.
On Whether The Undertaker Was A Personal Influence:
No. Interestingly enough, I gravitated toward him when I was older because I didn’t grow up watching WWE. I was 16 when I saw my first ever WWE pay-per-view. I wasn’t aware of The Undertaker because I grew up watching New Japan and WCW because that’s what we had in Amsterdam. I gravitated toward him because I loved the aura he presented. I loved that he was a character that I could relate to, but I would not say that I am the modern day version…of The Undertaker. I am not and I would also not feel comfortable saying that. Darkness is darkness by definition, but darkness can be interpreted in many different ways. He was definitely one that opened that door and showed the entire world something different…he brought a different light…something that wasn’t seen before.
On How School Was Growing Up:
Terrible. I was always anxious, always nervous. I never fit in. I wasn’t necessarily bullied, but here we go talking about the disconnect again. I don’t understand these kids. I don’t know how they’re going through life. My whole situation was different. I didn’t understand the need for Tommy Hilfiger, Gucci and all that stuff. I didn’t get it because we didn’t have it.
On Growing Up Poor:
Yes, but we never noticed it because my parents made sure that we had everything we needed. I had a very hard-working father and a very hard-working mother. My dad was someone that would get up at 5 in the morning and work ‘til 4 in the afternoon and then had a hobby he made money with. After he’d get home, he’d have a meal and have a drink and then flow right into that, trying to provide. He was very hard working and so was my mother. Were we poor? Yeah. We were very tight for money. We didn’t have new things. I couldn’t buy the toys that I wanted to buy, but gradually as I got older, it got better, but in the early days it was very tight.
On Fear Playing A Huge Role In His Life:
A lot of fear. I feel that’s where my anxiety comes from. A lot of fear. I always feel fear, even just in daily life I feel fear. [Even now] I’m frightened a lot. I feel like it’s caused me a lot of obstacles. I feel like something I need to climb a mountain that’s twice as high as the person next to me and that might be a very ignorant thing to say because I don’t know what’s going through their mind, but it seems like for a lot of people coping with things, it goes easier than it does for me. My mechanics are just very different from the way I grew up and my childhood. I remember a lot of fear, being frightened, anxiety, sadness, anger, injustice. It’s a lot of headbutting emotions.
(Transcription Credit: Michael McClead, WrestleZone)
