Austin Aries Talks Wrestling Punk & Bryan, How Far ROH Is From TNA, Russo & More
Joshua Modaberi recently interviewed TNA wrestler Austin Aries for Sportsvibe.co.uk. Here are some highlights:
On becoming the longest reigning X-Division champion in TNA history: "You're correct, reading the internet and Wikipedia is serving you well, but what it fails to mention is that I'm also the girthest X-Division champion in the history of TNA, not just the longest."
On ROH and wrestling CM Punk and Daniel Bryan: "It's always great when you get to wrestle guys that are on the same level as you. Whenever I got in the ring with either of those guys we would always go out there and put on great matches.
"From a professional stand point it's nice to see guys that have a real passion for what we do having such great success. It goes to show what a huge success Ring of Honor was, to have CM Punk as the WWE Champion, Daniel Bryan as the former World Champion in WWE and myself as the longest reigning TNA X-Division Champion."
The current state of ROH: "I'll be really honest with you, the Ring of Honor today is not anything like the Ring of Honor that the likes of CM Punk, Daniel Bryan and myself came from. Obviously they are still operating under the same name, but the company has changed so much over the years and it's really a shell of it's former self in terms of the vision and thought process. The original Ring of Honor and the Ring of Honor today are two completely different things, I like to call it Smokey Mountain of Honor."
How far behind ROH is from TNA: "A couple of thousand dollars behind, there is no money in Ring of Honor, and that means they will only be able to secure talent for a certain amount of time before they move somewhere else."
Who he'd like to wrestle: "I would love to get in the ring with Bobby Roode because he is the World Champion and that would be good. World Champion versus X-Division Champion. I would love to add another title to my collection. Some other guys I would love to have matches with include Kurt Angle, Jeff Hardy and obviously AJ Styles. Many people say AJ is the best X-Division Champion and I would like to put that to the test."
Vince Russo leaving TNA: "I don't really have any thoughts on the situation. There's lots of chefs in the kitchen, I'm given the recipe from those guys and I just go out there and cook up some greatness. I never really had many major issues with Vince Russo one way or the other and didn't really react with him a whole lot, but hopefully he is happy in what ever he is doing now and I know TNA will keep doing what we do."
Much more is contained in the interview, you can check it out in its entirety by clicking here.
Source: Sportsvibe.co.uk