Former TNA star Austin Aries appeared on Busted Open Radio on Tuesday afternoon to promote his return to ROH.
Down below is an excerpt from the interview in which he talks about his TNA World Heavyweight title reign and if someone from upper-management drop the ball with it.
This is what he had to say:
I guess as frank as I can say it … somebody dropped the ball, and it wasn’t me. I was ready to run with it and somebody knocked it out of my hands from behind. I’m not sure where the decision was made, but I agree with your assessment and I think a lot of people agree with that assessment [that TNA had red hot momentum when they put the title on Aries]. You know, sometimes you have too many cooks in the kitchen, so to speak. At that time, that could have been the case of what was going on.
You have different people fighting for different directions. All I wanted to do was to go on television every week and have the best god damn wrestling match of any company, anywhere. And we were poised to do that because we had all these fresh guys and matchups lined up that people wanted to see and the buzz was there and it was organic. Cowboy James Storm, he had earned a right for that championship title match and I kind of came along and maybe stole it from him … and I didn’t want to forget about him. I wanted to bring him back in the fold and give him the opportunity he had … I thought there was a lot we still could have done. And yeah, I’m disappointed I didn’t get the opportunity, but again…
I don’t make those decisions. I take what decisions are made and do the best with them. I do feel that there was a lot more left on the table there that could have been done. And I think they may be a problem overall in wrestling … not just with TNA or any certain company. I think people tend to think that once a guy wins a championship, that’s when he’s made … and for me I always feel that’s when it begins. That’s when a guy has a real opportunity to cement himself as a superstar or as a top tier guy. But you have to be able to see that through and give the guy the opportunity to succeed or to fail on his own. That’s really all I wanted … was the opportunity to succeed or fail on my own. But plans change. Jeff Hardy came in … no one is going to discount Jeff Hardy and what he brings to the industry with his name value, his name recognition … so it had nothing to do with Jeff personally, I just felt like I didn’t get the opportunity to really help the company to the best of my abilities.
