PWTorch Interview:
Radican interviews ROH's Austin Aries about wrestling 75 minute match

By Sean Radican, Torch Contributor
Sep 10, 2004, 4:36 pm
Contact: S_Radican@Yahoo.com

Credit: Pro Wrestling Torch

Austin Aries has only been wrestling in ROH since March, but during that time he has made more of an impact than many other newcomers to the ROH roster have. Despite only wrestling for a short amount of time, Aries shows more polish in the ring than some veteran wrestlers.

Aries tells PWTorch.com that he has been wrestling for nearly four years. "My first match was Nov. 25, 2000, so I'm closing in on four years," he says. Aries wanted to get in the business for a long time and gives credit to his friend for getting him into wrestling. "I got started in Minneapolis in late July of 2000 thanks to a close friend of mine Justin Lee, who had just started training up there as well," he says. "I had been a huge wrestling fan since I was four, but didn't know much about indy wrestling or how you would go about getting in to the business. Thankfully, Justin opened those doors to me."

Before coming to ROH, Austin began his wrestling career wrestling in a variety of smaller promotions in Minnesota before moving on to bigger promotions. "I started out wrestling in the Minnesota area for a year or so for different smaller promotions and then started migrating south to Chicago and my hometown of Milwaukee where I wrestled primarily for Mid-American Wrestling," he says. "I then continued to expand south working for IWA-MS. During this time I also got a chance to wrestle up in Canada a few times."

Aries career recently took a turn for the better during the past year when he got exposure in companies like TNA, ECWA, and WWE. "During the last year or so I've had the opportunity to wrestle a few WWE matches and also make an appearance for NWA-TNA," he says. "In April of this year I finally got to expand east as I was invited to participate in ECWA's Super 8 tournament, which was a great honor."

Early this year, ROH contacted Aries about wrestling in Minnesota and Chicago for them in April, but Aries got his start in March when he offered to drive to New Jersey and wrestler on an afternoon card. "They contacted me early in the year to book me for their first Chicago/Minneapolis double shot," he says. "At that time I offered to drive out with some others to wrestle on their Do or Die II card in Elizabeth, New Jersey. I had my first ROH match there against Danny Daniels." Aries credits C.M. Punk for getting him his initial opportunity in ROH. "I wrestled him (Punk) a couple of times in the Midwest and I know he put a good word in for me to the ROH brass to get me a shot."

Despite getting a large push upon arriving in ROH as part of the Generation Next faction, Aries had no idea what to expect when he came into ROH. "I honestly didn't know what to expect as far as my role with ROH when I started," he says. I just knew if they gave me an opportunity to showcase my ability, everything would work out from there. The GenNext faction obviously was a chance for us to run with the ball and it's nice to know people have confidence in your abilities. At the time I think it also helped ROH to develop some new ''stars'' to help soften he blow of losing some of their top guys with the TNA situation."

Aries has shown during his time in ROH that he is capable of working a variety of styles in the ring, all of which were influenced by a variety of wrestlers. "There have been a lot of influences, he says. "As a kid I loved the explosiveness of Dynamite Kid, Nikita Koloff, Great Muta. I loved the technical ability of Arn and Tully. I loved the personas and looks of Superstar Billy Graham, The Road Warriors, Macho Man, and early Sting. I loved to hate the personas of Ric Flair, Larry Zbyszko, Eddie Gilbert, and Bobby Heenan. As I've gotten older guys like Benoit, Guerrero, Malenko, and Jerry Lynn have all been influences."

Aries had a very good match with Bryan Danielson at "Survival of the Fittest" on Jun. 24, but he believes his most memorable match in ROH took place on Aug. 7 when he had a two-out-of-three falls rematch with Danielson. "My favorite would have to be my match against Bryan Danielson on Aug. 7th in Philly," he says. "Going two-out-of-three falls with a world class wrestler was a great opportunity to elevate my game and prove I can compete with the best of them."

Aries went over 75 minutes with Danielson on Aug. 7. "I knew this was not going to be a short match," he says. "We wrestled 20 minutes one-on-one at the end of the ''Survival of the Fittest'' match just for one fall." In order to prepare for his match with Danielson on Aug. 7, Aries did some extra preparation. "I tried to do more cardio leading up to the match," he says. "I also studied tapes of Bryan to better know his tendencies and prepare a game plan."

It has been rumored that Aries and Danielson were supposed to go an hour for each fall, but Aries claims he is not disappointed that his match ended up going for "only" 75 minutes. "It's funny how everybody thinks they know what was planned," he says. "I wasn't disappointed in this match at all. I think we had a real good competitive match, and the time is irrelevant to me. It took me 75 minutes to score two falls on one of the top wrestlers in the world. I would have been just as happy to get those two falls in 45 or 145 minutes."

Aries says what matters is that they worked together to put on a memorable match. "Bottom line is we had a good match and I think people are looking forward to us hooking it up again," he says. "And if they aren't right now, they will be after this match is released this weekend in New Jersey."

The live event reports from the Aug. 7 event have suggested that the crowd was burned out by the end of the Danielson-Aries match. ROH booker Gabe Sapolsky has said that Aries and Danielson will have a rematch at some point, but perhaps it will be in front of an invite-only crowd in order to get a better live response to the match. Aries believes that once the first two matches between he and Danielson are circulated that a rematch would be a good draw in front of any crowd.

"I don't know if they were the wrong type of crowd for our match, but they definitely had seen a lot of intense action leading up to our match and may have been a little spent by the time we got out there," he says. "As far as a rematch, I think once our first two encounters get out into circulation people are going to want to see a rematch. I'm not sure a select crowd is the way to go or not. Either way, I think an epic rematch could be a good draw."

As Aries looks to the future, he has several goals in mind for his wrestling career. "I just want to keep getting bigger and better," he says. "I'm enjoying my role in ROH and am also looking forward to getting the chance to compete over in Japan in the future."