Breaking: WWE Releases Austin Aries, Aries Comments (Updated)
WWE announced today that they have released Austin Aries. No other details were made available. Below is their full statement:
"WWE has come to terms on the release of WWE Superstar Austin Aries. WWE wishes Aries the best in all of his future endeavors"
Aries officially signed with WWE in January of 2016 and debuted on NXT on the March 2nd episode. He suffered a large orbital socket injury at the hands of Shinsuke Nakamura during a NXT live event last October which put him out of action for nearly five months. He re-surfaced on the main roster as a commentator for Cruiserweight matches, before making his main roster debut as a Cruiserweight this past March.
Aries went on to challenge Neville for the Cruiserweight Championship at WrestleMania 33 in a pre-show match, which Neville won. Aries' last WWE match was a losing effort against Neville at WWE Extreme Rules on June 4th, 2017. Aries appeared on 205 Live the following week and said that he had been dealing with knee and neck injuries, and has not appeared on WWE television since.
"I've got some stuff going on, but just to be fair you could probably say that for a lot of the locker room," Aries said on Busted Open Radio last month. "It's kind of part of what we do, I don't think anyone is ever 100%. So I got a couple things going on and obviously at this point it might be a good time to take a little break which really could consist of two days to just adjust some of those things, try and get my mind and my body right and then come back and figure out what's gonna be next and what the direction's gonna be."
We noted yesterday that Aries was scheduled to face Neville at tonight's WWE live event at Madison Square Garden, however was replaced by Cedric Alexander.
Shortly after WWE announced Aries' release, Aries posted the following tweets:
It's a beautiful day.
? Austin Healy Aries (@AustinAries) July 7, 2017
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? Austin Healy Aries (@AustinAries) July 7, 2017
Brody Whiteman, Brendan Ebright, Josh Washington and Chris Listman contributed to this article.