Austin Aries: “I haven’t had more fun in professional wrestling in my 18 years than I had in the last six months”

Oct 10, 2018 - by Steve Gerweck

Austin Aries recently appeared on Talk is Jericho (transcript via Wrestlezone), and discussed today’s wrestling landscape and working without contract restrictions…

On being in a special situation with today’s wrestling landscape: “Really the last six months I’d say that since February into March, April, like, I gotta be honest, I haven’t had more fun in professional wrestling in my 18 years than I had in the last six months. It’s been amazing, I’ve got to travel the world, I’ve got to really get my creative freedom back, which is something that I really value. Everyone’s different on that – some people look at this as strictly as a way to make money or become famous. I love the art of pro wrestling and being able take people on that emotional ride in the way that my vision is and what works for me. I’ve been able to do that now across the world with a number of promotions and I think successfully integrated myself into this kind of cool time in pro wrestling where, and you’re being apart of that, where things that you thought you knew of how pro wrestling was – the rules are changing every day. I had one of the writers, I won’t say which one, but he kinda hit me up and after something had happened when I showed up, actually at Ring Of Honor and he said ‘I wanted to say is – it safe to assume that you’re no longer with Impact?’ And my text back to him said, ‘In this landscape, nothing is safe to assume anymore, and that’s why I love it. It’s been great to go out and again have ownership of my life and my creative process and really kind of see this great landscape of pro wrestling across the globe.”

On the freedom with his current contract: “I still don’t have a contract that restricts me from working anywhere, which is I think is beautiful and I think as an independent contractor, the way wrestling could be. And so I’m trying to show companies that you can do that and it can be successful and you don’t need to have people under your thumb to do good business.”

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