A few weeks ago, on SmackDown, Zelina (who recently lost the "Vega" from her name) allied with her real-life husband, Aleister Black. They've since dubbed themselves the blue brand's necessary evil, though we've so far only scratched the surface of what they could accomplish together.
Zelina had a successful run in NXT as Andrade's manager, and it turns out that Black pushed to be paired up with her on television during his previous WWE run in the summer of 2021.
"We started shooting little vignettes for it, and we started creating outfits for it," Black recently told Sports Illustrated. "That first mask that I ever wore when I worked with [AEW] was actually one of the masks that was utilized. If you remember the Dark Father character that was at the end of my initial run [with WWE], that would eventually see my wife joining me...that was one of the pitches."
Black was ultimately released and signed with AEW, while Zelina remained in WWE. However, upon returning to the company this past Spring, he took the idea to Chief Content Officer Paul "Triple H" Levesque, who, funnily enough, also wasn't sold on a potential alliance.
"When I got back, the conversation arose again and initially [Triple H] was not really into it," Black admitted. "But I think that with the success of AJ [Lee] and CM Punk, and Seth and Becky, I think that he kinda went like, you know what, this might actually really, really work."
"He was completely sold on it and he really liked it," he said of Triple H's reaction to the Last Man Standing Match on the October 10 edition of SmackDown. "And then it kind of started building from there [during] those last two, three weeks. Where we're now looking at the presentation that you saw last week, and slowly but surely we're adding elements. This is a work in progress."
Now, they're going all-in on the idea, with the hope being that it will eventually lead to Black and Zelina sharing the ring as competitors.
"Hopefully this leads into some intergender tag matches, because we've been working in a laboratory on some unique stuff," he noted. "I'm expecting a lot of really cool stuff from this and it's a completely different dimension for myself and my wife."
Black's feud with Damian Prest has been a little stop-and-start, but it would be a lot of fun to see him team up with Rhea Ripley to go to wait with Black and Zelina. We'll have to wait and see. For now, you can check out their latest vignette below.