Nick Aldis wrestled AJ Styles’ last match in TNA. He says it did more damage to him than to Styles.
Asked about it on Insight with Chris Van Vliet, Aldis did not treat it as an achievement.
“That’s a dubious honour, and something I’d probably rather forget. It was horribly booked, and it didn’t do me any favors.”
“It didn’t do me any favors at all. It kind of hurt me a lot, actually.”
He said the reaction landed on him rather than on the people who made the decisions.
“I think that AJ’s TNA career came to an end, and that was such a tragedy for TNA fans that I think a lot of that negative energy ended up being directed at me. I became the sort of face of it, and I didn’t have anything to do with it. I was just doing what I was told.”
Aldis was careful not to overstate the effect.
“I don’t want to be overly dramatic here and say it was traumatic or anything, but it is definitely something that I tend to compartmentalize and keep locked away, because that hurt my career. That was kind of the end of my TNA career too.”
The one time it has helped
Van Vliet pointed out the symmetry heading into SummerSlam. Gunther beat Styles in what became the closing stretch of Styles’ WWE career. Aldis wrestled Styles’ last TNA match. The two now face each other.
“That helps. That’s probably the first time where any of that’s actually been of any use to me.”
Asked whether being painted in that light finally works for him, he agreed.
“Yeah, because honestly, for a long time I felt like that got hung around my neck.”
Aldis faces Gunther on Night One of SummerSlam at U.S. Bank Stadium in Minneapolis, in the first match of his WWE career.
