Austin Aries recently spoke with Justin Barrasso of Sports Illustrated to promote his new book, “Food Fight: My Plant-Powered Journey from the Bingo Halls to the Big Time.” Here are the highlights.
On Samoa Joe Challenging Brock Lesnar for the WWE Universal Title:
“Joe is a man who doesn’t fear Brock Lesnar,” said Aries. “He has been doing this a long time, and he’s been in the ring with legends, main eventers, and Hall of Famers. Joe is a cool cat and a cool customer. I’m sure he’s preparing, but I don’t think he’s sweating it. I think he’s looking forward to it as much as I’m looking forward to watching.”
On working with Neville:
“Neville is operating at another level,” admitted Aries. “He’s really finding himself in the mental aspect in and out of the ring, and he’s a guy who has really impressed me. I would have liked a different outcome, but I’m very proud of what he and I accomplished on 205 Live in terms of bringing out the competition and passion in one another.”
On his broken eye socket injury by a kick from Shinsuke Nakamura last October during a match in NXT:
“Nakamura didn’t kick me that hard, or at least not as hard as he kicked me other times,” noted Aries. “It just happened to catch me at the right spot, and I didn’t protect as I would have liked. We’ll just add it to the list of sacrifices that anyone who has done this for a length of time has made, physically, with our bodies,” said the 39-year-old Aries. “We accept that because we love what we do. In some ways, it may be a blessing in disguise. I don’t know where my path would have taken me had that not happened. I do know where it took me after it did – to go into commentary on 205 Live, then transition onto Raw, which led to my opportunity at WrestleMania and a great series of matches with Neville. If that came out of the broken eye hole, it’s a fair trade-off.”
