Austin Aries: The Adventures of an Arrogant Asshole

[Alucard]

 

[C.S.]

A perfect post on April Fool's Day from an absolute fool and tool every month of the year. 

The reason he's wrestled only once in 18 months is because no major (or apparently minor) organization will touch him anymore.

His drawing power is nonexistent, and anything he does in-ring is being done better by dozens of others with less baggage. 

[MoS]

This is legitimately embarrassing

[El-P]

6 hours ago, C.S. said:

His drawing power is nonexistent, and anything he does in-ring is being done better by dozens of others with less baggage. 

No. Austin Aries was a great, great wrestler. Like, legit awesome worker. Not just technically, but at pretty much every aspect of it. Great bumper, could sell super well as a babyface fighting from underneath, great heel, terrific looking offense, great explosiveness, a terrific sens of timing and pacing, could make anyone look better than they were, plus he was a really good promo too. The fact is an idiot asshole and was unprofessional at times doesn't change that fact, I'm not even sure there have been a dozen guys better than him in the last 20 years in the US. He's been going on a total downward spiral for a while, it's pretty embarrassing yes, and I doubt anyone will touch him anymore. Waste of a terrific talent. 

[NintendoLogic]

Aries in a nutshell:

[Coffey]

9 hours ago, El-P said:

No. Austin Aries was a great, great wrestler. Like, legit awesome worker. Not just technically, but at pretty much every aspect of it. Great bumper, could sell super well as a babyface fighting from underneath, great heel, terrific looking offense, great explosiveness, a terrific sens of timing and pacing, could make anyone look better than they were, plus he was a really good promo too. The fact is an idiot asshole and was unprofessional at times doesn't change that fact, I'm not even sure there have been a dozen guys better than him in the last 20 years in the US. He's been going on a total downward spiral for a while, it's pretty embarrassing yes, and I doubt anyone will touch him anymore. Waste of a terrific talent. 

Agreed. In professional wrestling, he was tremendous. I loved his ROH world title run era in particular. 

I don't know when it all started going downhill for him, truthfully. I feel like the initial catalyst might have been the Christy Hemme thing in TNA? That's the first thing I can recall but honestly, I think it might just be more that once he had a platform in Twitter, to spread nonsense, he showed his true colors. It's not "getting heat" when you're saying & doing the shit that he has said & done. It just makes you look exceptionally unprofessional & honestly, a liability to hire. Which is now where he's at.

[C.S.]

I will say that I've never seen the Aries you guys have seen - a mediocre face, a heel who doesn't come across as a threat, and a perfectly competent indie-style worker who doesn't even touch a hair on the asshole of Bryan Danielson, AJ Styles, or even most of the kids in NXT and AEW now.  

If there was a magically better Aries during his ROH World Title reign, I'd say that means jack shit zilch to me now, because he's no longer that guy and hasn't been for years. I'm talking about present-day Aries (well, the past 3-4 years or so).

2 hours ago, Coffey said:

I don't know when it all started going downhill for him, truthfully. I feel like the initial catalyst might have been the Christy Hemme thing in TNA?

That was definitely the first time I recall hearing something really negative about Aries that didn't have anything to do with his in-ring work, character, or the usual things people nitpick about a wrestler. It was probably the beginning of a long, slow, downward spiral for him.

I saw someone on Twitter speculate that concussion issues could be to blame for Austin Aries apparently losing his mind. It wouldn't surprise me. 

[El-P]

He probably had John Morrisson/Mundo/Impact best single match ever in 2018 and was terrific during that IMPACT stint. Well of course he did got up and no-sold the finish because he's an unprofessional asshole, although Johnny's facial reaction was so hilarious it was almost worth it ! But his work at that time, as good as anything you'll see anywhere.

Again, this is neither here nor there, but Aries was not far behind Styles, Danielson or Joe during his peak. Great, great pro-wrestler. He's apparently going "insane", since for so long his Twitter stuff was about veganism and animal rights. But I mean, he always had the rep of being an asshole, and anti-vax and such don't need concussions to say really stupid shit.

[Alucard]

2 hours ago, El-P said:

He probably had John Morrisson/Mundo/Impact best single match ever in 2018 and was terrific during that IMPACT stint. Well of course he did got up and no-sold the finish because he's an unprofessional asshole, although Johnny's facial reaction was so hilarious it was almost worth it ! But his work at that time, as good as anything you'll see anywhere.

Agreed.

His 2011-2012 Impact run is one of my favorites ever. Coming in as the cocky heel winning the X title, slowly having the fans turn him face due to his work, and capturing the world title in an all time great moment/match.

The 2018 run almost equally as great. Was giving me ECW Franchise vibes at the time, wished it could've lasted longer.

[Zoo Enthusiast]

12 minutes ago, Alucard said:

Agreed.

His 2011-2012 Impact run is one of my favorites ever. Coming in as the cocky heel winning the X title, slowly having the fans turn him face due to his work, and capturing the world title in an all time great moment/match.

The 2018 run almost equally as great. Was giving me ECW Franchise vibes at the time, wished it could've lasted longer.

Destination X 2012 is legit one of my favorite shows ever.

[sek69]

I would assert that people underrate Aries because his best work came in places not many people were paying attention to,  largely in Impact. Back then his most publically annoying trait was being a walking stereotype of the Irritating Vegan, which looking back we should have known it was going to lead to what he became since that tends to be a gateway drug for the anti vax mindset. 

[Clayton Jones]

This is spinning off into an entirely different conversation but there is nothing crazy or inherently conspiracy theory/anti vax about deciding to be vegan. I agree Aries definitely had some of the worst stereotypes going on but nothing he was saying on the Stone Cold podcast was remotely close to this territory.

Also mark me down in the "used to be great" camp although I'll add you could always tell never quite as great as he thought he was.

[sek69]

Oh don't get me wrong, there's nothing wrong with being vegan, it's just there's an overlap between the militant vegan mindset and anti vaxxers. 

[NintendoLogic]

Obviously not every vegan is an anti-vax kook, but they do seem to be unusually susceptible to pseudoscientific woo. Even Daniel Bryan, who's as level-headed as anyone in wrestling, sees a naturopathic doctor.

[El-P]

Doesn't surprise me in the least because of the whole "call to nature" fallacy that is always dangerously looming every time I hear "Go vegan" arguments. (I don't think there's anything wrong about being vegan either BTW, more power to them)

[Laz]

As somebody whose diet is about 90% vegan due to having a vegan partner and "in-laws," as well as many vegan friends from my years in/out of the metal and punk scenes...

Yeah. Whooooooole lotta nutjobs. There's a major overlap between "I don't eat animal products for health/moralistic reasons" and "GUBMINT SCIENTISTS BE LYING TO US" and you're not paying attention if you don't see it.

Back on topic, Aries was always a guy that could be a part of something great but wasn't doing it often enough to where I'd consider him to be great.

[Clayton Jones]

Ha you might as well have described my circumstance swapping out hardcore for metal and a vegetarian wife for a vegan partner. Sure there's overlap but there's wackjobs in every subculture. I'm just making the point there's nothing inherently connected about the ideologies. I could see an argument that's there's something about the personalities attracted to both, but that's still a pretty broad stroke.

But I digress, fuck Austin Aries regardless of what he eats and how good he was at pro wrestling.

[DMJ]

I'd chime in that the emergence of more widely available longform interviews/podcasts has also shed a bit of a light on certain performers' out-of-character dispositions - positive (Kevin Nash) and negative (CM Punk on Oral Sessions). There were shoots available for decades, of course, but free podcasts not only rendered those obsolete but also reached a far wider audience.

So, you take the increased exposure and much larger platform of a podcast and add the unfiltered comments of a guy like Austin Aries and, well...the result is that you have a guy that I can no longer watch without thinking, "Good wrestler, total self-righteous shithead."

Even pre-Covid, his attitude in interviews wasn't just irritating, it was insulting and made it very clear that he does not appreciate his fans. Having the attitude of, "Everyone else who doesn't eat like me or gets sick is a fat loser and its their own fault because their diet causes cancer" might be great as an on-screen character to get an on-screen reaction, but carrying it over into supposedly out-of-character interviews? That's a hard pass. Finding time to exercise, trying to eat healthy, trying to quit alcohol or tobacco or whatever - they're challenging for lots and lots of people. Hearing someone say, "Well, it's just a matter of will power and if you can't live 100% clean, that just means you have no will power" doesn't "inspire" me. It makes me think you're a condescending prick that I don't need to support. So, if I see you on an indie card, I'm not going. 

I'll spend my $20 to see an indie show where Kevin Nash waves hello from a stool set up in the ring for 5 minutes over spending $20 to see Austin Aries have a workrate-heavy, technically flawless mini-epic for 30 minutes. And it 100% has to do with my feelings for them as people over me not thinking Austin Aries is a very talented pro-wrestler. 

[joeg]

55 minutes ago, DMJ said:

I'll spend my $20 to see an indie show where Kevin Nash waves hello from a stool set up in the ring for 5 minutes over spending $20 to see Austin Aries have a workrate-heavy, technically flawless mini-epic for 30 minutes. And it 100% has to do with my feelings for them as people over me not thinking Austin Aries is a very talented pro-wrestler. 

Kevin Nash would make sitting on a stool for 5 minutes far more entertaining than anything Aries has done in a ring that he didn't share with Samoa Joe, Daniel Bryan, Nigel, or Punk. 

[C.S.]

Best. Tweet. Ever.

 

[joeg]

@C.S. Low Ki and Aries aren't in the same boat. Low Ki can work. And by all accounts he's a stand up guy. He's certainly hurt his career by marching to the beating of his own drum but that doesn't make him a bad guy. Aires is a piece of shit. I've never known somebody who had a nice thing to say about him. Not personally. Not on the message boards. Not on social media. There's a big difference. And Aries never had a good match where he wasn't carried.  

[C.S.]

@joeg Nah, Low-Ki is a piece of shit too.

One random example:

Personal assholery aside though, I would still watch a Low-Ki match over Aries any day of the week (if I were forced to choose between the two, that is). 

[sek69]

Low Ki was just on Twitter promoting Q Anon, so fuck him too.

[joeg]

Huh, I did not know that. I knew he had some weird personal beliefs, didn't know what exactly or even care. In my own defense I never said he was a mensa candidate. 

[NintendoLogic]

I never would have guessed that someone who thinks he can prove his toughness by stiffing the shit out of people in fake fights might be susceptible to idiotic ideas. And it's not even a case of plausible deniability where maybe he thought "Save the Children" was an innocuous-sounding slogan. He straight-up posted a video of Lin Wood ranting about the House of Windsor and the Vatican.

Luckily for me, I never liked the guy even before I knew he was a Trump-supporting anti-masker. If you haven't seen it before, check out this match where he knocks his opponent out legit right at the beginning and then picks him up so he can get his shit in rather than just taking the pin.

Looking back, the highlight of his career was when LayCool was making him wear pink shirts.