I’m sure you’ve heard the news about Austin Aries completely no-selling this years Bound For Glory main event. Since then, he’s had a couple of mentions from the guy he lost the title too (Johnny Impact), but the company and Aries himself have since refused to comment on his unprofessional behavior. Today, I look into his recent past to show the kind of character he is.
There’s no secret that Aries has always preferred playing the heel. And he’s done it well over the years, he’s found success almost everywhere he’s gone (except WWE arguably). When he returned to TNA in 2011 he made his presence known by reviving the X-Division. His popularity skyrocketed, which lead to probably the biggest match of his career at Destination X; when he defeated long-time World Champion Bobby Roode to claim his first major title since his ROH days. He was even publicly congratulated by WWE talent like CM Punk (who was WWE Champion at the time). He was on top of the world.
But his time only lasted a few months, as he dropped the belt to the more popular Jeff Hardy at Bound For Glory 2012. Both going unused in the main event scene, former rivals Aries & Roode teamed up (The Dirty Heels) to claim the TNA Tag Team Championships. This is where things seemingly went downhill, as the “Crotch Gate” incident showed the kind of person he is; one that sometimes takes it too far. The company stated he was heavily fined for it, although no number was ever revealed. Christy Hemme accepted his apology afterwards. In the video below, Hemme botches The Dirty Heels entrance. It was right for the heels to react in disgust at her mistake, but Aries went a step too far by shoving his crotch in her face. Dixie Carter stated the company has ZERO tolerance for inappropriate behavior.
Welcome To WWE
Of course some fans felt Christy deserved it, while others thought it was a form of harassment. After losing the tag titles, he returned to the X-Division which helped him get over in the first place. Yet, even after cashing in the “Option C” he founded on World Champion Lashley, he was unsuccessful. After a lackluster run in 2015, WWE announced in early 2016 they’d signed him to NXT. It seemed a foregone conclusion Aries would become NXT Champion before being promoted to the main roster.
The problem right off the bat was Aries was booked as a babyface against Baron Corbin. Fans were used to booing Aries, and the only time he made a good face was in his rivalry against TNA World Champion Bobby Roode. Aries stated his intention to become NXT Champion, so Regal booked the match and he lost to Shinsuke Nakamura at NXT Takeover: The End. WWE finally did the right thing when Aries turned heel on No Way Jose. In August of this year, Aries responded to a WWE Network post showing the work between Hideo Itami and Austin Aries at Takeover Brooklyn II. Aries felt insulted WWE continued to use him to promote their products despite being Impact World Champion:
Aries: “Ahh yes, my reward after giving @WWENoWayJose the best feud and match of his @WWE career. My first meaningful win in @WWENXT and any equity I’d earned is immediately discredited. And what’s either guy done since? Great success? Do post more @WWENetwork clips of me. RESPECT.”
No Way Jose posted a response to this, showing Aries literally fading from WWE memory with a sad emoji face:
Some fans seemed to wonder “who hurt you?” as he sarcastically complimented No Way Jose for his reply. Some say he was just working fans with his attitude.
“Well, this reply instantly got you more over with some wrestling fans than anything you’ve done in @WWE recently. I don’t even work there and I’m still getting you over! That’s how good I am at what I do! Anytime you’re free, love to dance again…”
Aries teamed with former ROH buddy Roderick Strong in the Dusty Tag Team Classic, but they were eliminated early due to an injury. In a match with Shinsuke Nakamura, Aries picked up a serious eye injury. At a live event, Shinsuke Nakamura kicked him too hard and he ended up needing permanent titanium plates to support his eye. Aries laughed it off and seemed in high spirits despite being forced out of action for months.
He didn’t want to be forgotten, so WWE had him commentate at WWE Roadblock. He also helped on commentary for 205 Live and Main Event. He had some cracking moments at the table, with some very non-PG comments slipping in there. He really does have a big package.
205 Live Blues
While taking an interview with Neville, Aries turned face by attacking the Cruiserweight Champion. He went on a winning streak, ending with a five-way which earned him a spot at Wrestlemania 33. Many fans anticipated the epic match that would unfold between Aries & Neville, and some were hoping it would be on the main show. It wasn’t, in fact .. it was the first match on the pre-show when half the audience hadn’t gotten into the arena yet. Aries had much to say about this decision later. Aries did not win the Cruiserweight title.
He fought Neville at Payback and Extreme Rules again for the title, but fell short of the target. After the match at Extreme Rules, Aries could be seen on the outside visibly fed up. When the camera panned to his face, he gave a smirk which can only be described as a no-sell of the situation. He’d just been beaten for the third time in a row .. yet he’s smirking? Unsurprising what came next. Maybe coincidental, but the same smirk can be seen in his last Impact Wrestling promo.
After the loss he tweeted: “And with that, it might be time for some serious life reflection and career reevaluation….@WWE #ExtremeRules”. He was released from contract shortly after, and Austin spoke about his time in WWE in late-2017. It was initially rumored he asked to be let out of his contract, before reports suggested he was very unpopular with writing staff and backstage.
Aries: “The truth behind why Austin Aries was fired isn’t because creative couldn’t find nothing for me. How do you not find something creative for Austin f****** Aries? The truth is, I got let go because I probably deserved to be. They didn’t find anything for me because they didn’t want to find anything for me because I was f****** miserable. I competed at WrestleMania 33, and I’m telling you, leading up to what should have been the biggest moment of my life, I couldn’t find an ounce of joy. That’s when I realized, there was something wrong with me. In six months, I lost my job. Relationships with people I cared about were tarnished.”
Upon leaving WWE he gave a speech about his status at Tommy Dreamer’s House Of Hardcore. The fans crapped all over it and chanted “boring”. But while it was exceptionally long and unwelcome to the hardcore fans, he touched on a lot of subjects about his life and the business. It included:
- His return to the indies.
- Professional wrestling as his career.
- His bad reputation with Jim Cornette.
- Vince Russo not being liked backstage in WWE.
- Being released from WWE.
- Being miserable in WWE.
- WrestleMania 33 not being fun for him
The Belt Collector & BFG Incident
Almost like sleeping around after a terrible breakup. Aries wanted to prove to the world he was still worth something. So he went out and won as many championships as he could get away with. He walked back into Impact Wrestling and defeated Eli Drake for the Impact World Championship immediately. Fans were happy to see Aries being appreciated as a wrestler again.
He was meant to face Alberto El Patron at Redemption to defend his title, but Alberto no-showed and we got a much better match with Pentagon Jr and Fenix instead. Aries complimented both men after the match despite losing the championship to Pentagon. In a rematch, Aries turned heel by low blowing Pentagon to reclaim his World Championship. After unifying his Grand Championship in to the World title, he successfully retained against Moose at Slammiversary.
Despite being able to defend the title on his own, Aries soon recruited the services of Killer Kross, and later former rival Moose, to form a triple threat stable. Although he’d been away for months, Johnny Impact was announced #1 contender to the World title at Bound For Glory; without earning it in a match. As the PPV got closer, they took to Twitter to enhance their feud. But that’s when it turned sour, as there seemed to be legitimate tension on Aries’ side at least. Either that or Johnny took his “heel” comments to heart. It started with Johnny mentioning Aries’ short stature, which made him respond by calling his new wife Taya Valkyrie “husky”. Johnny didn’t mind Aries insulting him, but felt the husky comment was crossing the line. They were asked to remove the tweets and Aries made to apologize.
Also for no reason at all, Aries took a shot at X-Division champion Brian Cage for not defending his title at BFG:
On Cage as X division champion: “Obviously, you’d like your titles to be defended at major pay-per-views. I think most fans would agree with that although it doesn’t mean that always has to be the case. I think it’s funny, if you look at Brian Cage, the guy calls himself “The Machine.” 265 lbs and spends a lot of time in the gym and eating chicken breasts. The guy comes in Impact Wrestling and instead of going after a guy like Moose or Killer Kross, who is he beating up? A bunch of guys half his size? Walking around like he’s a big man.”
On his own time as champion: “I was the X-Division champion and competing against guys mostly my size, and I dominated them. Then I stepped up and dominated guys double my size just like him. I’ll be impressed when he gets in there with Moose or Killer Kross and let’s see if he’s doing the things he’s doing now. He’s an impressive athlete but he wants to do some flips and twists and dives. Have fun, don’t get hurt. It’s dangerous.”
On Cage not using Option C: “I think maybe when he had to read what Option C was, he got a couple of sentences in and it was too much for him. So I don’t even know if he understands what Option C means. He might think it’s some superset he can do to get an extra inch on his bicep or something. Who knows?”
So apparently Aries had an issue with the “short shaming”, while Johnny had issues with the “fat shaming” due to his wife’s eating disorders. Johnny and Taya went on TMZ Live, who wanted to ask questions about the incident. After Abyss’ Hall of Fame ceremony, Aries had some words for him before turning his attention to Johnny. He didn’t appreciate Johnny trying to capitalize on what they said on Twitter by selling the details to TMZ. Apparently there was always meant to be a brawl, but the heat between the two lead to it getting out of hand, and some of the staff were hurt in the process.
Immediately after the intense main event of Bound For Glory (the match seemed like it had some legit punches and takedowns in it), Aries stood up after taking the fall and shouted up to Don Callis (vice president). He spat on Johnny, who mouthed “are you kidding me??”. Aries flipped off everyone in the arena before walking backstage. His stablemates Killer Kross & Moose looked dumbfounded as they didn’t know what to do. Commentary didn’t mention the incident as it was happening, instead remaining silent as Johnny held up the Impact World title in celebration with his wife Taya.
Aftermath & Conclusion
Neither Aries or the company had much to say about it afterwards, but some of the talent did respond to the incident:
Sami Callihan: F*** Austin Aries. S**** Austin Aries. I don’t really care anymore. I’m sick of talking about him. There are a lot of people that busted their a** on that show. Maybe we shouldn’t talk about him. Maybe we should talk about me, because I’m actually working for the company.
Brian Cage: To me, I was comparing it to UFC 229. Khabib and McGregor have this awesome fight and the chaos that ensued afterwards overshadowed how awesome of a fight they had,”. “We’ve had a hell of a time, especially from Slammiversary on. [Bound For Glory] was solid. Their match was awesome. Johnny is the new champ, that’s awesome. Now all of that is kind of getting pushed aside because of that five second isolated incident. Obviously, everybody wants to know what’s going on. I don’t know. Do I agree with it? No, I don’t. I don’t want that to be the memory of Bound For Glory.”
My first thought was, ‘That was worse than Shawn and Bret.’ A lot of stuff was happening. I guess it was Austin being Austin. I didn’t see him after the match. Literally, I’m just dumbfounded,”. “It’s obviously not professional. Knowing Austin, he’s such a traditionalist. Had it been done to him, not even done to him, him just seeing it. I think he would equally feel like he was being crapped on as part of the locker room. It’d be hypocrisy not to feel that way.”
“He’s got his own mentality. I don’t want to say his own agenda like he’s out to go into business for himself all the time. The tweets between John and him, I even got involved in a couple of them because they shoot made me laugh. Obviously you’re building the match and working your persona. There’s a little bit that comes across very real with Austin. I don’t dislike Austin at all. Just his demeanor within the professional realm. I told my fiancé back home what happened and she was like not surprised.”
Johnny Impact: “The beef that him and I had was one hundred percent real”, Impact revealed. “I guess if Austin’s watching this, I apologize for using the word ‘beef’, because I know you don’t like that kind of thing. But he, in my opinion, crossed the line. He legitimately pissed me off with the tweet that you mentioned specifically (calling his wife ‘husky’), and I think it’s because I tweeted a short joke at him. He hates short jokes, and I knew he hated short jokes, which is why I tweeted a thing like that at him. You’re having a Twitter war. You’re flinging poop back and forth, and I nailed him with a nice piece of poop, and he took the poop and threw it at Taya, and that pissed me off. I’m making light of it now because we’re over it, it’s past, it’s done. But it did legitimately get me hot.”
“Never say never in wrestling, and this whole situation is something that I’ve been thinking about because I’m really proud of that match. He pushed me in a way in the ring that I haven’t been pushed in a while, and it would be hard to have that much real emotion against someone that I really didn’t want to strangle. But he didn’t have to do what he did at the end of the match. And I feel like if he had just gone a step or two less far, him and I could’ve been cool, the office could’ve been cool with him, he could’ve worked out the contract thing, and he could’ve still been at Impact. “And I’m not saying I’m sorry about how it worked out, because I’m not going to miss him, and I don’t think many people in the Impact locker room are going to miss him either.”
And very shortly before Bound For Glory, Aries was on Chris Jericho’s podcast saying he was the happiest he’s ever been working in Impact Wrestling. And what he’s done since BFG is interesting. I can’t post any of the tweets as many of them are vulgar, but you can check them out here:
https://twitter.com/AustinAries
Aries did not do this immediately (after BFG), but sometime recently he’s gone back and looked at the reactions from the day (and following weeks) of Bound For Glory. He mockingly retweeted 109 fan posts showing their utter disgust with his behavior. It’s like he wants this kind of publicity. At the age of 40, Austin is not getting any younger and his career may be remembered more for what he’s said than what he’s achieved in the ring. One of the best wrestlers in the world today, but none of his skill matters when he embarrasses the business in the main event of Impact’s biggest PPV of the year.
As I look at it more and more, it feels more likely to be a work .. seeing as management let the talent do the speaking for them. Maybe Aries does have heat backstage, so they decided to turn it into a storyline shortly before BFG 2018? Either that .. or he’s a certified dick for real. We’ve seen the evidence of it, he does tend to get pissy when things don’t go his way. What did Jim Cornette say about him?
“Don’t knock Austin Aries’ talent, he’s a good performer. The only reason he fails everywhere is because he’s a miserable little whiner who thinks he should be pushed to the moon and knows more than everyone else. Wrestling and promos, he’s fine. Probably needs a cheeseburger.”
Ouch. Well it’s safe to say he’s made a lot of enemies whether it’s a work or not. I guess we’ll find out in time. Real incidents in wrestling often create the most buzz, and this one will surely be remembered for a long time. Have we seen the demise of The Greatest Man That Ever Lived? Should we care if he disappears into obscurity? Can he be redeemed?
It’s been interesting researching this topic, and I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did putting it together. See you guys! Thanks for reading.
