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What's the story?
Impact Wrestling recently held a live Media Teleconference on Youtube. Austin Aries was a part of this conference where he talked on various subjects.
When he was asked a question about the comments made by Kurt Angle regarding Impact Wrestling on WWE television, he shot back at his former company.
You can listen to the entire teleconference here:
In case you didn't know...
Austin Aries is currently the holder of Five Championship Belts from various promotions, two of them being the Impact World Championship as well as the Impact Grand Wrestling Championship. Ever since he left WWE he has been on a streak of wins and has called himself the 'Belt Collector' over recent months.
Austin Aries was brought into WWE where he was a regular part of NXT programming. After suffering an injury to his eye during a match against Shinsuke Nakamura, he took time away to heal from his injury.
When he returned, he was a commentator for 205 Live on the main roster programming. He then returned to in-ring action and had a feud with then-Cruiserweight Champion, Neville. Due to differences of opinion about his booking with WWE, he left the company and went on to carve a path for himself on the Independent Scene.
The heart of the matter
On the Monday Night Raw episode after WrestleMania, Kurt Angle came face to face with Sami Zayn and Kevin Owens. They told him that they had been released from SmackDown Live and asked him for jobs on Raw. During this segment, Kurt Angle made a jab at Impact Wrestling, referring to it on WWE television in an unprecedented move, calling it 'TNA'.
He told Sami and Kevin that they could approach other companies for jobs as 'TNA is hiring'.
This controversial comment caused an uproar on the Internet and Impact Wrestling replied to it suitably joking about it on Twitter.
During the Teleconference, when Austin Aries was asked about the comment, he said that he felt that every company was hiring, mentioning that WWE had done a lot of hiring as well over the past six months.
He then went on to say that WWE writers needed to update themselves, as TNA no longer existed and the name of the company was Impact Wrestling.
He also mentioned that Impact was indeed hiring, and shot back at WWE mentioning the perks in Impact.
"It’s cool man. We are hiring. If you come here we won’t test you, or take money out of your pocket for smoking marijuana."
He finished off, saying that they were trying to provide something that was an alternative.
What's next?
WWE is currently working with Impact Wrestling to produce a video collection of the best of the Hardy Boyz. You can read about it here!
Author's take
This is one of the first times that WWE mentioned Impact Wrestling on their programming, as this was something that was considered taboo before.
The mention helped the entire segment. Also, the way that Austin Aries commented about WWE, it is obvious there are still hard feelings between the two parties about his run in the company.
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