Earlier today, it was announced on WWE.com that Austin Aries had been released from the company.
Naturally, we’re all speculating just what this means and how it came about, as it could be anything from him quitting due to contract issues or being unhappy, WWE giving him the pink slip and firing him for not being pleased with his work, or even his injuries being worse than anticipated and this being a more mutual agreement.
Whatever the reasoning, if you’re a fan of him (like myself), then this sucks, as he’s only been in WWE for a relatively short amount of time and hadn’t hit his stride yet, since he was injured for a good portion of that stretch.
There were still SO many feuds I wanted to see between Aries and other wrestlers on the Raw, SmackDown and NXT rosters that we may never get a chance to witness, now that he’s gone from WWE.
So without knowing whether or not he’ll return—or when, if he does—these are the top 10 feuds that I had been looking forward to with him that we can assume may never come to fruition.
Honorable Mentions
Before we get to the actual top 10, I just wanted to mention a handful of other feuds that didn’t make the list but were still programs I was looking forward to.
AJ Styles is one, but I took it off because we had seen those two go at it in TNA. Given a choice, I’d go for something different than a repeat, whenever possible.
Gentleman Jack Gallagher, Cedric Alexander and Akira Tozawa from 205 Live were all feuds I thought had potential on that brand where he’d be able to act as the veteran to boost their respective characters quite a bit.
There’s also Finn Balor, who I think many people would have in their top 10. I haven’t been as high on Balor as most people, as I find him rather bland, but I do agree that their matches could have been something special, so I was curious how that would go down.
10. Shinsuke Nakamura
The bottom few of my list are there almost entirely based on the potential for the in-ring action to be fantastic, ignoring everything about characters and promos.
You pretty much have to ignore that when it comes to Shinsuke Nakamura, as he struggles with that more than 95% of the roster, but when it comes to the matches themselves, he delivers.
Obviously, Aries would have been the heel in this situation, outsmarting Nakamura here and there, but ultimately coming up short in the end.
9. Cesaro
Ring of Honor graduates pair nicely together as they have experience working together and trust in one another, and Cesaro is an easy person to throw out there where you know he’ll try to make the other person look good.
Again, this wouldn’t have been a storyline about characters involved in a bitter feud or anything deep. It could have been just about the competition and one-upping each other. In fact, this could have potentially warranted another Best of __ series of matches as I expected Cesaro and Aries to have great chemistry together.
Aries would play up his speed over Cesaro’s strength and I assume Cesaro would be the babyface in the feud, as that feels like a more natural fit than for it to be the reverse. This would have been a fantastic Intercontinental or United States Championship program for a few months.
8. Seth Rollins
Another Ring of Honor alum, Rollins would have paired better with Aries as far as promos go, than Cesaro or Nakamura. The match would also be considered more high-profile since Rollins is a former multi-time world champion and the other two haven’t reached that level yet.
Ideally, though, this would have been another upper-midcard feud and not for the WWE Championship or Universal Championship. The main event typically gets overbooked while the secondary or tertiary top matches of that pay-per-view can get a little more freedom to work a style they prefer, which would be integral to the success of a Rollins/Aries feud.
This would have been a scenario of telling the two to go out there and just do their thing, with either of them potentially playing the hero or the villain, depending on your preference, or possibly both going into the feud as tweeners since they both straddle that line.
7. Brian Kendrick
By far, the feud in the cruiserweight division that I was looking forward to the most was between Austin Aries and Brian Kendrick out of all the combinations of wrestlers on that brand, young or old.
Kendrick is one of the few who is confident enough in his abilities on the mic that he can be allowed to start a feud over something other than a win/loss trade-off and Aries would have excelled in verbally sparring with him.
Easily, this could have been a Cruiserweight Championship feud for a stretch of time that equaled the Neville/Aries feud, but with more nuance, as Neville’s character is pretty one-note while Kendrick has been a variety of characters so far since his return.
We’ve seen the “down and out of his luck veteran” version of Kendrick, the former friend turned enemy of TJP, the twisted mentor of Akira Tozawa and most recently the anti-UK character, so what would we have gotten out of TBK in his feud with Aries? I was very curious, and I hope we get to see this somewhere down the line.
6. Sami Zayn
Sami Zayn is one of the easiest people to book for in WWE. He’s a smaller guy with a lot of heart who is pretty dorky and easy to pick on. Done.
Aries and Zayn have similar enough body frames that they would have paired not as a David vs. Goliath like Zayn does with Baron Corbin and Kevin Owens and such. Instead, they would be more equals, allowing a better exchange of dominance to open up their matches to have a wider variety of elements.
Aries would obviously have been the heel, easily, picking on Zayn as being beneath “The Greatest Man That Ever Lived” while Zayn would remain the humble hero ready to teach him a lesson in checking his ego.
5. Dean Ambrose
This may seem like an odd pairing at first, but I feel like it would have had a lot of potential if WWE were willing to let them play around with their darker sides.
Ambrose is most fun when he’s able to go crazy and he’s opposite someone who embraces the insanity of professional wrestling. If it’s too serious, he can’t goof around, and if the feud revolves around a championship, then Ambrose’s hands are tied and the winner/loser is dependent upon setting up future storylines, which often gets in his way.
Against Aries, though, the two could have developed a true hatred for each other as some of the stranger, more unhinged people on the roster (in a traditional sense, as opposed to someone like Kane or Bray Wyatt).
As repetitive as it sounds, this would be another story where Aries would play the smarter tactician while Ambrose would be the risk taker who is more reckless with his animosity toward Aries.
4. Kevin Owens
This is where we start getting into the “everything they touch is gold” category as outside of a few hiccups here and there, Kevin Owens is one of the most trustworthy guys to pull off a good feud with virtually anybody.
Not only that, he’s also a standout in the ring against most of his opponents, so the action itself would deliver, too, as we all know Aries has that down as well.
It may seem like this is a mismatch as far as size, yet that hasn’t stopped Sami Zayn from having as many solid matches with Owens. Aries isn’t far off from Zayn’s build, so that shouldn’t be a problem.
Sadly, for Aries, he would still have to play the part of the underdog, as he would need to be the babyface in this feud for it to work, which would mean that he’d also have to take most of the losses.
3. Dolph Ziggler
I know I’m of the minority as of late, but I still regard Dolph Ziggler as being one of the top five in-ring performers in WWE, which is an accolade I feel he’s maintained for the majority of his career on the main roster.
This was my go-to feud I was hoping to see happen when Aries would be promoted from NXT before they had announced that he would join the cruiserweights, and I was still holding out hope that his idea of reassessing his career would turn into an exit from 205 Live and a spot on the SmackDown upper-midcard where it would happen.
This could have worked with either man playing the part of babyface/heel. In one scenario, Aries is telling Ziggler to stop complaining about being overlooked. In another world, Ziggler is the face trying to show up The Greatest Man That Ever Lived to prove that he is the one with the ego problem.
Basically, they’re both jerks with big heads who wouldn’t get along, and when the bell would ring, they’d assuredly have a stellar contest.
2. The Miz
For the promos alone, this would have been solid gold.
Think of it as a combination of The Miz vs. Daniel Bryan as far as in-ring potential, but the verbal sparring of The Miz vs. CM Punk.
If you had told me at any time that we’d see a two month feud between Aries and Miz for the IC or US titles, I’d have been on board no matter what point in the year it would be. This could have even been a WrestleMania quality feud as far as I’m concerned and if it never happens, it will be a shame.
I feel like Aries could have brought out the wrestling side of Miz, who would have turned things around in respect to bring out the best of the promos in Aries.
1. Chris Jericho
Above all else, this was my #1 priority for Aries feuds in the future. There aren’t too many people left that I would have liked to see Y2J face, but Aries was certainly one of them (along with Bobby Roode and Shinsuke Nakamura being two others).
Jericho is the top of the food chain right now when it comes to people who can adapt to a situation and feud with anybody. He’s made a habit of flip-flopping between spots on the card. One month, he could be fighting Roman Reigns or Kevin Owens and the next month, he could be working a match with Chad Gable or Big Cass, so there’s no question he would have found a way to make a feud with Aries work as far as their levels of importance.
We know both are solid in the ring and on the mic, so all they would need from WWE is the right amount of time to tell whatever story they agreed on telling. The promos wouldn’t need to be overly scripted and the booking of their in-ring performances could be left to their accord as well. Both of them are veterans and wouldn’t need their hands to be held whatsoever.
Sadly, like all the others on this list, we don’t know if there’s a chance they will happen at any point in the future. This could be the end for Austin Aries in WWE, or this could be just a temporary thing with him returning in a few months or a year or so. Time will tell, but for now, I’ll have to keep holding out some hope that we’ll be able to check off at least a few of these.
What are your thoughts on Austin Aries being released from WWE? Are there any programs you were hoping to see him work that you’re upset won’t be happening? Drop those thoughts in the comments section below to keep the discussion going!