What’s the story?
Without a doubt, the recent parting of the ways between WWE and Austin Aries came as a surprise. He recently ended up on the short end of a feud with WWE Cruiserweight Champion Neville – and had recently discussed taking some time off – his actual release from the company was certainly aa shock. Now, thanks to some recent digging from Dave Meltzer, we’ve got a little more information on how everything went down.
In case you didn’t know
After making a name for himself in both Ring of Honor and then-TNA Wrestling, Aries made the move to WWE by joining NXT in January of last year. He actually did pretty well there, until an orbital socket injury he sustanined during a match with Shinsuke Nakamura put him out of action near the end of the year.
WWE, however, apparently wanted to keep fans’ eyes on him, and he was brought in on commentary for Cruiserweight Division/205 Live matches on Raw. Once he recovered, he was immediately put into a feud with Neville (rather than go back to NXT), and wrestled him for the belt numerous times – including the pre-show of WrestleMania 33.
The heart of the matter
According to Meltzer, the official story is that WWE release Aries themselves, as opposed to Aries requesting a release himself. Aries was under a three year deal with WWE, and him quitting would have apparently kept him out of action that long, so he wasn’t exactly weeping when WWE decided to cut ties themselves.
Also allegedly, neither Aries nor the backstage team were getting along with one another, making this seperation all the easier. He was also apparently peeved that with WrestleMania 33 match with Neville wasn’t included on the show’s DVD release, meaning neither men would earn royalties on it.
What’s next?
With a release, Aries is held to the standard 90-day no-compete clause in his contract. That means that while Aries is free to do certain indie dates during that time (with WWE approval), he won’t be appearing for GFW, New Japan or Ring of Honor for at least three months.
Author’s take
The idea that Aries wasn’t exactly getting along with creative sort of explains why the trigger was never eventually pulled on him getting the Cruiserweight belt, despite all the build up. It’s a shame it didn’t work out between the two and, considering how it all went down, we probably won’t see Aries in a WWE ring again. Not that the split was all that acrimonious but this kind of showed that the pairing wasn’t really working for either party, and Aries can pretty much work anywhere and still have a successful career.
