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Austin Aries Jumps Ship

Critic of the DawnPosted on 06/24/07 at 08:06:52

According to the Ring of Honor website's message board, Austin Aries jumped ship from Total Nonstop Action to Ring of Honor at the PPV taping tonight in Chicago.

As of this point, there is no confirmation from any of the major dirt sheets, but given his situation with TNA, many felt that this was only a matter of time.  And, all things considered, this is a huge gain for Ring of Honor but only a minor loss to TNA.  

Ring of Honor gains a former World Champion to round out their main event scene which has been hurting since the loss of Joe, Daniels, and Homicide.  It helps that Aries is a pretty good talker as well.  With Aries back, the feud between the No Remorse Corps and the Resiliance can start to build steam again.  This will prove helpful in grooming a new generation of upper-midcard and main event talent in Davey Richards, Rocky Romero, Matt Cross, and Erick Stevens.  

TNA, on the other hand, loses a talented worker they feel to be unreliable - at best, Aries would be able to achieve a solid midcard position in TNA, and considering recent events such a position seems unlikely.  Aries is capable of having excellent matches with anyone in the X-Division, but in the last year or so TNA has demonstrated that they aren't really interested in heavily pushing the X-Division.  If all TNA is going to do with its smaller wrestlers is book throw away 3 minute multi-man matches, there's thousands of spot machines on the indy scene who can do the same moves as Aries.  Aries is thus entirely replacable in the role TNA has used him for.

Thoughts?

Eric "Critic of the Dawn"
pszPosted on 06/24/07 at 16:37:08

My thoughts on the handling of TNA in general:

They're NOT WCW/WWE. They're not even ECW in it's Hey-Day. They treat the wrestlers as if they were, though.

Until they realise that a good chunk of their guys *NEED* to work indies/rivals, and another good chunk *LIKE* to work/rivals, they're going to lose a lot of mid-card guys (Higher-end guys will be paid enough to stay with one show, lower-end guys probably don't have the "You can't work for <blah>" bit in the contract)

This is a good thing for ROH, for all of the reasons Critic pointed out.

This is the third "name guy" that's left TNA in the past, what, week now?

Something's not quite right in Orlando.


(Or this is all a work, and TNA and ROH actually have a new working agreement.)
The EmpressPosted on 06/25/07 at 22:37:43

I am very happy for Austin Aries, who no longer has to be held down by that WWE wannabe TNA.  He was always misused in TNA, so I think he made a wise career move if he wants to be a serious professional.