Wrestling / Austin Aries

The Greatest Man That Ever Lived

Daniel Healy Solwold Jr. (born April 15, 1978) is an American professional wrestler better known by his ring name, Austin Aries. He trained under Eddie Sharkey and Terry Fox and made his professional debut on November 11, 2000.

He is best known for his time in TNA where he has been a TNA World, Tag Team and X-Division champion. On June 27, 2015, he lost a match to Rockstar Spud and was forced to leave TNA; in reality, his contract expired and he made the decision not to renew it. He would then return to ROH. In January 2016, he would officially sign with WWE, before asking and being granted his release in July 2017. On December 2017 he joined Defiant Wrestling for 6 months and is 1x Defiant World Title champion.

Before coming to TNA, Aries was the first wrestler to be a two-time ROH World Heavyweight Champion. He has also won many other wrestling title belts such as the Mid-American Wrestling Junior Heavyweight , Steel Domain Wrestling Tag Team Titles with Ted Dixon, NWA Midwest X Division Title, and the Pro Wrestling War Heavyweight Title.

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"The Greatest Tropes That Ever Lived"

• The Ace: He's the longest reigning X-Division Champion in TNA history, and was the only man to win the Ring of Honor title twice until Jay Briscoe, who never lost the title in a match, regained the belt in 2014.
• Alliterative Name: Except for Dan Sexon, Austin Starr and Suicide. Also has been called "The Vascular Vegetarian", which he corrected to "The Most Valuable Vascular Vegetarian".
• Alternate Company Equivalent: Both he and Bryan Danielson use many of the same moves and were rivals in Ring of Honor. So Aries went on to headline TNA and Danielson WWE. For bonus points, both men are vegans.
• Arch-Enemy:
  • In TNA, it would actually be safer to say he doesn't have one. Unlike AJ Styles and Christopher Daniels, where this was due to longevity causing them to feud with just about everybody on the roster, Aries doesn't really have one because nobody likes him and he's damn well proud of it.
  • In ROH, you could argue that Jimmy Jacobs considers him this solely because of what happened with Lacey. And, of course, there's Tyler Black, of whom both resented juuust enough to be willing to work together. For added measure, Black was the one who ultimately ended Aries's second ROH World Championship reign.
  • In WWE, Neville in 2017.
  • In Real Life, Sami Callihan, whom he accused on Twitter of being a glory hogger.
• Bad Boss: At Defiant Wrestling's Defiant #10, as the self-proclaimed leader of the IPW faction, he bashed his teammates for their failures at the 5-on-5 elimination match between Team IPW vs. Team Defiant at Defiant Chain Reaction. This led to Aussie Open and Mark Haskins turning on him and Damian Dunne having second thoughts about keeping on IPW with Aries.
• Badass Cape: He wears one to the ring.
• Beat Them at Their Own Game: When Aries discovered Bobby Roode had hired Aces And Eights to do his bidding, Aries simply decided to offer them more money than Roode had.
• Berserk Button: As someone who started wrestling in the late 90s, bringing up his height is one, as he still remembers being passed over for opportunities less talented but taller wrestlers have. Johnny Impact bringing it up over Twitter turned their Worked Shoot exchange into something genuinely vicious that ended up with him literally walking out of the company the second he lost his championship.
• Big Damn Heroes: He ran out to stop his tag team partner Roderick Strong from further beating on Delirious after he had been knocked unconscious. This is the same Aries who knocked the Haze aside to keep attacking Delirious after his throat had been kicked in. So yes, Even Evil Has Standards.
• Boring, but Practical: His new finisher in 2017 is a discus elbow smash... which seems odd considering Aries' deep move set and the fact that he works primarily in the Cruiserweight Division, which not only allows but encourages more flipping around. But then, it's also an elbow, aided by the momentum of spinning and a rope rebound, forcefully applied to a man's jaw. And if that's not enough to sell the move as a legitimate knockout blow, just listen to it when it hits.
• Bubble Pipe: He could sometimes be seen chomping on a pipe but he never seemed to light it up.
• By the Hair: Pulled Daizee Haze this way to distract Delirious away from Rhett Titus and Kenny King. After Delirious and Jerry Lynn teamed up with Tyler Black to defeat Aries, King and Titus, Aries would kidnap Haze out of spite.
• Call-Back:
  • Aries played a crucial role in the dismantling of both the Jimmy Jacobs\BJ Whitmer incarnation of Lacey's Angels and The Age of the Fall, which of course involved Jimmy and Lacey.
  • He's doing the Wade Barrett role in the Nexus-esque IPW invasion of Defiant Wrestling, whose GM is... Stu Bennett (Wade's real life name).
• The Cameo: Played for laughs. He continued to appear "as a fan" at Ring Of Honor events even after TNA forbid him from doing further work in the company. After TNA released him he ran into the ring and signed a contract then and there.
• Canon Name: His real-life middle name as part of his character name; Austin Healy Aries.
• Casanova Wannabe
  • At ROH The Final Showdown he informed a heckling fan that if he wanted her mouth open he'd have dropped his pants.
  • The basis of his "A Double" gimmick in Chikara. Ranking guys on a grading scale, A+ still wasn't good enough for the greatest man that ever lived, AA.
  • Also, Aries wants you to know he's doing Tyler Black's girlfriend
• Cast from Hit Points: The Last Chancery wrenches Aries's back as well, he's just to ornery to let that stop him, or perhaps too tough where other wrestlers will eventually relent with the hold.
• Chain Pain: How he won the first match of his second TNA run against Shannon Moore
• Cool Shades: During his interviews with Ring of Honor after the show went to HD Net. Also wore them pretty often in his non-wrestling segments in TNA, a habit which he took up to eleven in WWE. Just about any time he's not in the ring wrestling, he's got them on. And given the injury that moved him to the commentary booth, he hasn't been seen without them on WWE programming for months.
• Cool Teacher: As ROH world champion he was also the head trainer for Ring Of Honor's school. Also, Rhett Titus was someone he personally trained (which explains a lot).
• Crowd Chant
  • (when the ROH bots were against him) "Austin Asshole!" or when some of the crowd were cheering for him and others in the crowd decided to chant "Overrated!"
  • "Fuck TNA" during his 2007 return to the ROH roster.
• Curb-Stomp Battle: His "relaxed rules" match with Necro Butcher saw Austin Aries on the receiving end of one. Since he was feuding with Age of the Fall and had gotten other people to leave the group peacefully, Austin Aries thought he could do so with Necro Butcher too. He was wrong.
• Damned by Faint Praise: Invokes this when he praises Chris Sabin holding the TNA World Heavyweight Championship for less than a month after winning it by hitting Bully Ray in the head with a hammer.
• Defeating the Undefeatable: Ended Samoa Joe's twenty one month reign as the Ring Of Honor World Champion. CM Punk and Tyler Black could also count for beating Aries, if being the first multiple time ROH champion qualifies him.
• Demoted to Extra: WWE found no use for him beyond voice work for the WWE '12 video game. Subverted later, as he would go on to sign a contract with NXT.
• Despair Event Horizon: Played for laughs in Dragon Gate where he claimed to lose his desire to be a wrestler after he failed to get on WWE Tough Enough. He would eventually find new purpose helping CIMA win matches as part of Blood Warriors.
• Determinator: Bryan Danielson's strategy at testing the limit was to cripple every single region of Aries's body, leaving him completely incapable of escaping his bear hug. He even spent the latter stretch of the match attacking Aries's head to stop him from using that too. Aries cared more about winning than his mental health apparently because he still headbutted his way free as everything else failed.
• Disproportionate Retribution:
  • So, why did Aries kick in Delirious's throat and assault Daizee Haze again? That's right, Delirious bit him. Why did Delirious bite Aries? Because Aries was trying to pull off Delirious's mask. Why was Aries going after the man's mask? Because Delirious had made Austin Aries look foolish during the course of their match. Oh and Haze demanded a medical examination for her friend, which apparently offended Aries somehow.
  • Unfortunately for him, Spike TV viewed a segment where Austin Aries put his crotch in ring announcer Christy Hemme's face for announcing him and Bobby Roode as "Bad Influence" (the team of Christopher Daniels and Kazarian) and they were not pleased, feeling he should have stopped at forcing her to get it right. Since then he's been unable to escape the doghouse for any significant length of time. TNA seemed to have the trope in mind though, since they had previously come down harder on Bully Ray for yelling homophobic slurs at fans his first night as a Big Bad, not even showing it on camera.
• Doing It Wrong: March 15 Impact in Chicago, Aries attempted to put Sting in the Scorpion Deathlock only to get every attempt to lock it in wrong, long enough for Sting to recover and make a comeback.
• Ear Ache: When in brawls with the much larger Knux and Abyss, Aries tried to make up for the size differential by clapping the sides of their heads.
• Enemy Mine
  • With the Briscoe Brothers vs. Age of the Fall. Then with Jimmy Jacobs against Tyler Black. Aries still wouldn't join the Age of the Fall but resented Black just enough to work with Jacobs for a little while.
  • With Rhett Titus and Kenny King against Jerry Lynn
  • He resolved to work with Bobby Roode to take out TNA World Champion Jeff Hardy. Too bad they both planned on betraying each other for the title. Roode did it first.
• Face/Heel Double-Turn: He sided with Bobby Roode and Dixie Carter against MVP on TNA Impact, but after MVP defeated them, he became a bad boss, making Roode and Aries into good guys for still opposing him. Carter remained bad boss though.
• Fighting Your Friend: When he and Samoa Joe decided to stand together against their bad boss, TNA's director of wrestling operations MVP, MVP simply booked them in a match together and told them the loser would be fired. Eric Young came out to interrupt the match by attacking the referee before there could be a victor.
• Five Moves of Doom: During his ROH tenure he had a tendency of finishing matches with a roaring elbow, a superkick to the knee, and a standing punt to the head, followed by a brainbuster and either the 450 Splash or his Last Chancery submission. Sometimes he would omit the elbow and superkick and would use a crucifix bomb to set the combo up instead.
• Fun with Acronyms:
  • When he adds Healy as the middle to to the Austin Aries name it goes from Alliterative to this— Austin Healy Aries.
  • Why does he insist so hard on the Most Valuable Vascular Vegetarian thing? Because it combines Alliterative Name (see above), It's All About Me, and this trope via the shorthand of MV3.
• Gimmick Matches: His best of three series with Jimmy Jacobs involved a falls count anywhere match, a dog collar match and an I Quit match. Aries is not a fan of ladder matches or TNA's Ultimate X, ironically.
• Groin Attack: At ROH Nowhere To Run he held the ropes open for Samoa Joe and then snapped them as Joe was leaving the ring. Aries went on to attack Joe's injured ribs but Joe ended up laying him out.
• A Handful for an Eye: Retained the X Division Championship against Zema Ion by getting himself disqualified, which Aries did by spraying Ion in the eyes with hairspray.
• Heel–Face Turn: It's quite subtle. He's still a smug egomaniac, but he consistently backs it up, wins matches cleanly and is rarely the instigator of feuds.
  • Face–Heel Turn: Seems to have switched back since losing the World Title to Jeff Hardy- again, it's fairly subtle, but he's become more overtly insulting of his opponents, vicious in the ring and has resorted to cheating to win a couple of matches.
  • His face to heel turn in Ring Of Honor was about as sensible as these can get. He did not like the fact fans were cheering for Tyler Black more than they were for him.
  • Face–Heel Revolving Door: Destined to forever encounter it in TNA. On one hand his character is an arrogant maverick who knows just how damn good a wrestler he is. On the other hand, fan demand is the reason he got a contract with the company in the first place.
• Hope Spot: As MVP laid out to him, Bobby Lashley was bigger, stronger and faster than Austin Aries, but it turned out Aries was the quicker and more agile of the two and had everyone believing he was going to beat Lashley.
• How Much More Can He Take?: Ring Of Honor testing the time limit resulted in Austin Aries and Bryan Danielson going seventy five minutes, which showed he could take more than an hour usually allotted.
• Human Shield: Used the referee as one as part of his plan to defeat Jushin Thunder Liger at ROH SoCal Showdown.
• I Can Still Fight!: Lacey tried to throw in the towel on his behalf during his ROH Rising Above "I Quit" match with Jimmy Jacobs but Aries insisted she not do so. So in turn, Lacey made sure Tyler Black did not throw the towel in for Jacobs either, forcing one of them to scream "I Quit!" It was Jacobs.
• Important Hair Cut: Believed shorter hair would help him get more ladies
• Invincible Hero: His X-Division title reign went on for nearly 300 days. It got to the point where Hulk Hogan made a deal with Aries so that if he dropped the X-division belt he'd get a shot at the World title. Which he then won, fulfilling the trope.
  • It mainly happened because there were no more X-Division challengers left because Austin Aries had beaten everyone in the division.
  • On the receiving end of this trope in Ring Of Honor against Petey Williams at ROH Goldrush. Austin Aries went so far as to hit Petey with his own Canadian destroyer only for Petey to kick out at one and proceed to kick his ass.
• It's All About Me: Austin Aries always does good, always does the right thing, that is, what's right for himself.
• Jack of All Stats: He can brawl, fly, mat wrestle and bust out some hard-hitting power-moves (see below). Underlining this is the fact that he's got a power finisher (brainbuster), a submission finisher (Last Chancery/Horns of Aries), a striking finisher (Discus Fivearm) and a (albeit, rarely seen) top-rope finisher (the 450 splash).
• Jerkass: The saying goes there's only two kinds of people who wear sunglasses indoors, blind people and assholes, and Austin Aries isn't blind. Hey, just paraphrasing his own words.
• Leitmotif: "Raging of the Region" in TNA.
• Lesser of Two Evils: The lesser vs Bully Ray toward the tail end of his record breaking TNA X Division run in 2012. This lead to the formation of Aces And Eights after Option C came about to let Aries when TNA's World Heavyweight Championship. AT the time no one knew Bully Ray was the head of Aces And Eights but it would become obvious as more time passed. Aries was also the one to reveal Bully Ray was involved with Brooke Hogan.
• Lighter and Softer: In Chikara (naturally) where he began grooming himself better, wearing bright pink and developed "The Greatest Man That Ever Lived" gimmick. The bright pink aspect didn't stick as well as the rest, though.
• Line-of-Sight Name: Generation Next took their name from the Ring of Honor event they stormed.
• The Main Characters Do Everything: Erick Stevens and Matt Cross were useless against The No Remorse Corps when Aries wasn't around. This is due to ROH stretching out the angle while trying to get TNA to let them use Aries some more.
• Masked Luchador: One of many men to take the role of Suicide, or rather, Aries took on the role of Suicide without approval from whoever decides what makes one a legitimate Suicide, causing the "real" Suicide at the time to change his name to Manik.
• Never My Fault: Shown at Defiant #10. This was the catalyst for half of Team IPW turning to Defiant.
  Aries: I think it's safe to say Chain Reaction didn't go quite as we have hoped. And as the leader of the team, I take full responsibility. It's all my fault. As the leader it's my fault, I must take full responsibility, because, you see, you're as strong as your weakest link. And apparently, I've picked some pretty. Weak. Links. (Walks towards Aussie Open) Aren't you guys supposed to be some tag team specialists? What happened? You (Kyle Fletcher) were the first one out. Eliminated. And then you ("No Fun" Damian Dunne) I gave you the opportunity to step up against Rampage, man. What happened? What happened to you? You tried? Oh, you tried. That was your best? That was your best. Well, that was pathetic. If that was your best, that was pathetic.
  (Mark Haskins pulls the mic from Aries)
  Mark Haskins: You wanna know what's pathetic? Pathetic is the alleged leader of this team tapping out like a little bitch.
  (Pop, then chants of "You tapped out!")
  Aries: Yes, yes, I tapped out. And let's talk about what happened right before I tapped out, Mr. Mark Haskins. You kicked me in the face. You know why? Because, apparently your tag mix is not very good, or your timing's off, or you have no rhythm, or maybe all of the above? I may gonna ask your woman about that.
  (a big OOOOOOHHHHHH! from the crowd)
  Aries: Your response for talk the champ. You kicked me in the face. And then yeah, I tapped out. Because, let's be honest. At least the match didn't really make much of a difference, right? Because my championship wasn't on the line, and as long as I have this, guys, as long as I have this, we sustain some support around here. So luckily for you, I'm still the champion, and you also have a chance to redeem yourselves.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: His and Roderick Strong's excessive beating of Alex Shelley lead to Alex Shelley joining the Embassy and becoming an even bigger pain.
• Nice Job Fixing It, Villain: His mistreatment of Team IPW allowed Stu Bennett to hire them as part of the Defiant roster in the fallout to Defiant Chain Reaction. And while Aries eventually lost the World Title to Rampage at Defiant No Regrets, Mark Haskins (along with Jimmy Havoc) and Aussie Open (the first ones to turn on Aries) got to play Hot Potato with the Tag Team title ever since the latter team obtained it, putting every other team in the background.
• Ninja: Or rather Aries stole the identity of a Pro Wrestling RESPECT ninja in order to upstage and defeat a bunch of RESPECT trainees who were put in a battle royal.
• No-Sell: A notorious example at Bound For Glory. While Johnny Impact defeated him for the 1-2-3 count, Aries immediately got up afterwards and walked off like nothing happened to him instead of staying down and allowing Johnny to have his moment.
• Not Bad: When he lost the title to Jeff Hardy, he rationalized it as Jeff briefly finding a way to ascend to his level but that Jeff obviously could not keep it up.
• Older Hero Versus Younger Villain: His feud against Neville and TJP
• Only in It for the Money: Said that Alex Shelley and Brian Kendrick only cared about entertaining fans and having five star matches, while Aries boasted of having had five star matches for years and only caring about a five star bank account.
• Parts Unknown: (as Austin Starr) "TV Land"
• Pass the Popcorn: Austin Aries offered to anyway while watching the number one contender for his ROH World Championship, Tyler Black, wrestle Roderick Strong. He eventually threw the remaining popcorn at Black when Black started win, causing Tyler to respond with a super kick.
• Pint-Sized Powerhouse: At 5,9 he's short by wrestling standards. However, he can lift 300 pound heavyweights like Samoa Joe, Bully Ray, and "The Destroyer" Lashley over his head and brainbuster them. I'd say he qualifies.
• Paparazzi: Austin Starr with Alex Shelley, Kevin Nash and Johnny Devine.
• Perky Female Minion: Jade Chung sided with Generation Next after leaving the Embassy. Mainly due to Roderick Strong but she helped Aries too.
• Power Stable
  • Under Alex Shelley in Generation Next with Roderick Strong, Jack Evans and later, Matt Sydal when he broke into Ring Of Honor
  • DP(Dave Prazak) Associates in Full Impact Pro with LaDuke Jakes, Samoa Joe, Delirious, Cyber Kong, Jimmy Rave, Bryan Danielson and Adam Pearce.
  • The Standard with Adam Pearce, Joey Kaos and Peter Avalon in NWA Pro and NWA Hollywood
  • Blood Warriors in Dragon Gate
  • Team Aries in Defiant Wrestling, alongside Chris Ridgeway and Mark Haskins. They are the leaders of the IPW invasion.
• Power Trio: Was part of two in Ring of Honor:
  • Resilience with Matt Cross and Erick Stevens.
  • Pantheon of Gods with Kenny King and Rhett Titus of the All Night Express.
  • Team Aries in Defiant Wrestling.
• Precision F-Strike: When Jeff Hardy was going to go on to beat him again in a ladder match Austin Aries tried to jury rig the whole thing so no one could reach the belt, and shouted an explicative about Jeff never getting that belt, just for Jeff to get a bigger ladder.
• Punny Name: Dirty Heels, his tag team with Bobby Roode. The name was first tested through shirts they both wore in a backstage segment once when they first teamed in TNA, then used officially when they tagged up in House of Hardcore, then stuck for good when they teamed again in TNA. Don't Explain the Joke, please.
• Put on a Bus: During his stint as "The Greatest Manager That Ever Lived", he was removed from the ROH roster until the company could get its finances together. Aries would not be coming back, as he ended up on the TNA roster.
• Rage Quit: Out of DP Associates due to lack of success.
• Real Men Wear Pink: A pink fur vest, starting in Chikara.
• Red Baron: Dan "Casual" Sexton in Steel Domain Wrestling. Later "A Double", "The Greatest Man That Ever Lived".
• Redemption Rejection: Dismisses Stu Bennett's offer for a contract at Defiant #10. This is not the case with (almost) the rest of Team IPW, who part ways with Aries in a very bad way, joining Defiant in the process.
• The Rival
  • The Second City Saints to Generation Next after Generation Next targeted Ricky Steamboat. Even CM Punk has standards.
  • The Kings Of Wrestling to Generation Next. After Claudio Castagnoli and Chris Hero managed to beat Aries and Roderick Strong for the ROH tag team championships, fellow Generation Next member Matt Sydal eventually managed to win the belts back with Christopher Daniels.
  • Whoever Prince Nana was managing.
  • Roderick Strong turned on him after he and Aries failed to defeat Daniels and Sydal for the Tag Team titles. Since this directly lead to the "No Remorse Corp" the rest of them too when Aries formed "The Resilience".
  • Bobby Roode in TNA. The two constantly alternated between working together and working against each other. Then they won the TNA Tag Team Championships, which made Aries a triple crown champion in TNA.
• Sadly Mythtaken: He called himself "The God of War" in TNA. One letter away, Aries means ram. Austin does know better too.
• Screw This, I'm Outta Here: After losing the Impact World Championship to Johnny Impact at Bound For Glory, rather than lie there and sell that he'd been through a hard-hitting match and just taken Johnny's finisher, Aries proceeded to get up like nothing happened, flip off the crowd and the commentators, and walk away.
• Shaped Like Itself: The ROH trio of Aries, Kenny King and Rhett Titus, The Pantheon of Gods.
• Sharp-Dressed Man: In Pro Wrestling Guerilla, during his second ROH World title reign.
• Signature Move: Discus Elbow, Figure Eight Leglock, Fish hook of doom, Heat Seeking Missile (Suicide dive), Macho Neck Snap (rope hung neck snap), Pendulum Elbow (pendulum back breaker to elbow drop), Power Drive elbow (twisting elbow drop), Slow Motion Special (jumping knee drop).
• Small Name, Big Ego: While not necessarily a small name, being a multi-time world champion and all, calling yourself "The Greatest Man That Ever Lived" means you have an ego that far outweighs any name you could possibly have.
• Smug Snake: Austin Aries is a good wrestler, perhaps a contender for the best in the world. However, even if he was indeed the best in the world he would still qualify for the fact he repeatedly has to have it beaten into him that there maybe just maybe be someone else who is around his level.
• Sunglasses at Night: He's always seen with a pair of sunglasses.
• 10-Minute Retirement: A five day retirement in 2011 when he left EVOLVE and Dragon Gate to pursue a career outside of wrestling, only to resurface in TNA. He revealed this was because he was temporarily demoralized after watching The Wrestler.
• Third Movie Goes To Asia: He and Roderick Strong took the ROH Tag Team Championships to Dragon Gate in Japan to make them the ROH World Tag Team Championships and hopefully upgrade them to main events status, which they did.
• Three Month Rule: TNA jumped the gun when it announced, two months after Austin Aries's (real) suspension for choosing an ROH show over a TNA one that it was going to introduce a "new" wrestler. Who turned out to be Austin Starr. He got suspended again for complaining about having to do vignettes on his day off and then went back to ROH, only to return to TNA as Aries again.
• Tournament Arc
  • Defeated Adrian Serrano and Shawn Daivari in the finals of the MAW Junior Heavyweight Title Tournament
  • Defeated Steve Douglas for the Rings Of Europe Wachauer Wrestling Trophy
  • He won TNA's Gold Rush Tournament in 2014, though it was more like a Battle Royal that one had to win a qualifying match for than a traditional tournament.
• Trojan Horse: The real reason he signed with Defiant Wrestling. He obtained the World Title and it turns out that he never cared for the company as he signed a contract with IPW beforehand, so Team IPW sent him to obtain the World Title and destroy Defiant from the inside.
  (at Defiant #7) "We defied Defiant"
• Tweener: Jimmy Jacobs began to take interest in Austin Aries and his potential for the Age of the Fall after Aries stopped following the Code of Honour, following a loss to Nigel McGuinness. Aries did sympathize with Age of the Fall too, or rather he agreed with their message, just not with them personally.
• Use Your Head: Besides his usual trope fair, on the 10/15/2014 edition of Impact Aries started furious headbutting Bobby Roode in the back after the referee demanded a clean break follow Roode reaching the ropes during a Last Chancery.
• Versus Title
  • EVOLVE 6: Aries vs. Taylor, EVOLVE 7: Aries vs. Moxley.
  • RPW: Okada vs Aries
• Villain of Another Story: Took on a harmless referee role in Wrestlicious, but the show made no attempt to disguise Aries from any who might have recognized him.
• Worthy Opponent
  • Alex Shelley, whose potential match of the year showing against Aries at Against All Odds 2012 saw him come closer than anyone to ending Aries' X-Division title reign. This one is Older Than They Think. Aries and Shelley were former partners in Ring of Honor as Generation Next, and later became bitter rivals after Gen Next turned face and removed Shelley as leader. Shelley then joined The Embassy, who were Gen Next's chief rivals.
  • Austin Aries said as much of AJ Styles in TNA. AJ was a loose affiliate of Generation Next while they were in Ring Of Honor.
• Would Hit a Girl: Austin Aries's reputation precedes himself and it also applied to Starr, as he performed a drop rope guillotine on Lita in the United Wrestling Federation.
• We Can Rule Together: Tried this with Rich Swann, who felt he was being ignored by the stables of Dragon Gate for being a foreigner but it did not work because Swann did not want to be Aries's underling.
• Wrestling Psychology: Bryan Danielson uses Austin Aries to demonstrate the importance of basics and fundamentals, why knowing how to apply holds correctly and when to do things is more important than knowing cool looking moves.

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