Austin Aries wants to leave IMPACT Wrestling fans with a better image than the one that took place at IMPACT’s Bound For Glory in 2018.
Aries recently spoke with Steve Fall for WrestlingNews.co. The pair discussed the now-infamous “walk out” that took place at the conclusion of the pay-per-view. Aries had gone in as champion, but he ultimately lost the IMPACT World Championship to Johnny Impact in the main event. He was then seen storming out after no-selling Impact’s finisher, and fans believed that a legitimate incident had taken place.
Austin Aries has maintained that it was all staged, pointing to IMPACT cameras continuing to film him after he allegedly went off-script. He told Fall that the plan was for a rematch with Johnny. However, that never happened because he never came back to the company.
Aries’ contract ended up expiring. He told Fall that his main regret was actually not following up on the BFG incident.
“So, my only regret for that whole situation was passing on the contract offer that was put on the table after that. We — I never talked about some personal things I was going through at the time, and I just decided that it was in my best interest not to re-sign there. In retrospect, in hindsight, however many years later, I would have made that decision differently,” Aries said.
“But that definitely created the perception that — you know, I don’t come back. There is no rematch, there’s no payoff to this. It would seem like I went into business for myself. That was really, looking back, I could kick myself because it really wasn’t for the actual Bound For Glory [moment],” he pointed out. “It was for not following through with what was planned.”
A potential reunion?
Aries noted how the story continues to follow him today. He joked that if a match doesn’t go down as planned, it’s called “pulling an Austin Aries.” Still, he hopes he one day gets a chance to go back to IMPACT and leave on better terms.
“I created something that will live in infamy for a long time. It’s all good. I do hope that at some point, I do get to go back to IMPACT and at least leave in a different way. My intention was never to be the last thing that fans there saw me was me giving them the double bird as I stormed off to the back. That was never — that’s not how I wanted to ‘end scene’ for my career there,” he said. “I’ve had a lot of great moments there and I owe that company a lot of my success. So we’ll see. I’m still going at it, they’re still chugging along and maybe down the road we’ll reunite.”
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