Speaking with Chris Van Vliet on his YouTube show, Austin Aries covered several incidents he’s had with IMPACT Wrestling. The most notable of those is his walk out of the company last year following the Bound For Glory main event. While many saw that as an angry Austin putting himself over the company, it turns out that this was all in the original plan. “There was a plan for me to return. It was my idea, an idea I pitched for a reason and that those people knew of. (It was approved) by the people that needed to approve it and needed to know.”
Aries continued that he wanted to take a more hands-on role in the company, particularly on the creative side of things. “No offense, but I did more in a week with a tweet than you did in eight weeks with TV. I’m just here to help, I’m not a decision-maker, I’m an ideas guy. They passed on that.” While the original plan was for him to keep the title at the end of the night, management decided to switch it at the last minute. When that happened, Aries proposed that he should leave for a while. “I said, ‘Listen, if I lose the title, I shouldn’t show up a week later anyway and talk more shit. I need to disappear for awhile. The show could probably use some freshening up.”
He also wanted to keep his flexibility, but on a more long term deal than the ones he’s signed in the past. That didn’t seem to be in the cards at the time and he declined a contract extension that December. “With all due respect to the talent there, nothing they’ve done as a company since (I left) has made me regret my decision. If anything, I made the right one. In a lot of ways, I think I was holding some of that shit together.”
For more of the two-hour conversation, which also includes talk about his altercation with Christy Hemme, you can check out the full interview embedded below:
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Transcript provided by Fightful
