Austin Aries’ time in WWE lasted less than two years, but was a real roller coaster ride. He started with a surprising debut in NXT, and remained there for a few months.
His time in NXT came to an end in an unfortunate way, as he suffered a serious eye injury in a match against Shinsuke Nakamura. The resulting surgery from that injury kept him out of action for months, and when he resurfaced, it was as an announcer for cruiserweight matches on WWE Raw. When Aries was cleared to return to action, he was made a focal point of the cruiserweight division along with Neville, but failed to capture the cruiserweight title.
To add insult to injury, Aries and Neville’s WrestleMania match was left off the DVD release. Aries then did or didn’t take some time off from WWE before it was announced that he had been released by the company. It was initially reported that Aries had been granted his release, but Aries later clarified that he was let go in a “creative has nothing for you” situation.
During a show on Saturday night put on by Tommy Dreamer’s House of Hardcore promotion (which aired live on Twitch), Aries appeared and cut a promo to elaborate on his release, and his plans moving forward. Unfortunately, a Philadelphia crowd of largely ECW fans probably wasn’t the best place to go for a heartfelt speech, as fans booed during the long promo, and chanted both “boring” and “shut the f*ck up.” Whoops!
Still, Aries had this to say about his release. (h/t to Wrestling Inc. for the transcript.)
“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*cking 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*cking 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.”
Aries said he was going to start focusing on being the best person he can be, and that now that he’s recognized the problem in himself, he can “finally be free.”
Aries was eventually interrupted by wrestler Alex Reynolds, and the two men had a match that Aries then won. The crowd ended up being much more into the main event, which was a first blood match between Tommy Dreamer and Joey Mercury. Sorry about the reception, Austin. Try it again in Ring of Honor. The fans will LOVE it there.
