Austin Aries is best known for his time with Impact Wrestling, where he is a three-time Impact World Champion and a six-time Impact X Division Champion, and Ring of Honor where he was the first multi-time ROH World Champion.
97 Facts About Austin Aries
2.
Austin Aries is known for his time with WWE, where he competed in the cruiserweight division as well as doing color commentary.
3.
Austin Aries began to work with ROH in 2004, joining the Generation Next faction.
4.
Austin Aries won the ROH World Tag Team Championship with his teammate Roderick Strong, and at Final Battle 2004, ROH's biggest event, defeated Samoa Joe to win the ROH World Championship, ending the latter's 645-day reign.
5.
Austin Aries would regain the title in 2009, becoming the first multi-time champion.
6.
Austin Aries won the TNA World Tag Team Championship and the Impact Grand Championship, becoming a Grand Slam Champion in Impact Wrestling.
7.
Austin Aries wrestled in the midwest for several years before his east coast wrestling career was jumpstarted after he progressed to the finals of the 2004 ECWA Super 8 Tournament, where he was defeated by Christopher Daniels.
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Austin Aries made his ROH main show debut at ROH: Reborn Stage 2 on April 24,2004.
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Austin Aries was unsuccessful losing a four corner survival match involving Jimmy Rave, Rocky Romero, and the winner, Nigel McGuinness.
10.
Austin Aries captured the ROH World Championship at Final Battle 2004 on December 26,2004, by defeating the longest reigning ROH World Champion Samoa Joe.
11.
On December 17 at Final Battle 2005, Austin Aries teamed with Strong to defeat Sal Rinauro and Tony Mamaluke for the ROH World Tag Team Championship.
12.
Jack Evans ran down and pulled Strong off Austin Aries, but refused to side with either of them.
13.
When Evans refused to side with him, Austin Aries said he was going to form a new faction with members of the next generation of wrestling.
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Austin Aries won the poll by a landslide, and thus faced Daniels in a non-title match at Sacrifice, which he lost.
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On September 22,2005, Austin Aries announced on his website that he had received a contract offer from TNA, and intended to sign it.
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Austin Aries became a regular member of the TNA roster, and formed a stable with Roderick Strong and Alex Shelley.
17.
One month after being granted his release from TNA, Austin Aries made his return to Ring of Honor.
18.
At United We Stand on June 22,2007, Austin Aries was in attendance, but as a "fan".
19.
Austin Aries tried to climb over the guard rail, but was held back by security as he was no longer employed by the company.
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Austin Aries then signed an ROH contract in the ring.
21.
The first night, Austin Aries teamed with Erick Stevens to defeat Roderick Strong and Rocky Romero.
22.
At Glory by Honor VI: Night Two, Austin Aries disbanded The Resilience in order to focus on regaining the ROH World Championship.
23.
At Rising Above, Austin Aries faced current ROH champion Nigel McGuinness in a losing effort in an attempt to regain the ROH World Championship.
24.
Austin Aries was defeated by McGuinness a second time at Supercard of Honor III in March 2008.
25.
Austin Aries was not considered to have won the championship a second time, but rather to have been a substitute in a title defense.
26.
Austin Aries had unsuccessfully attempted to get Butcher to leave the Age of The Fall and when Necro refused, he ceased fighting back against him.
27.
Austin Aries continued his feud with Jimmy Jacobs throughout the fall.
28.
The second match took place at Bound By Hate, and Austin Aries defeated the bloody Jacobs in a Dog Collar Match.
29.
Austin Aries continued his feud with the Age of the Fall this time against the heavily cheered Tyler Black.
30.
Austin Aries later explained that the reason that he attacked Black was because the fans turned on him.
31.
In early 2009, Austin Aries underwent a complete character transformation, cutting his long hair, donning new pink and black trunks, and coming to the ring in a bright pink fur jacket.
32.
Austin Aries dropped his darker persona and adapted to a new ladies man gimmick, often referring to himself as "A Double" and "The Greatest Man That Ever Lived", the latter after a song by Weezer, which became his new entrance theme.
33.
On June 13,2009, at Manhattan Mayhem III, Austin Aries won a three-way elimination match against the ROH World Champion Jerry Lynn and Tyler Black, to become the first person to have held the ROH World Championship on more than one occasion.
34.
On February 13,2010, at the main event of ROH's 8th Anniversary Show, Austin Aries lost the ROH World Championship to Tyler Black.
35.
In October 2010 Austin Aries' profile was removed from ROH's official website, after reports had surfaced that the promotion was going to be cutting down the size of their roster.
36.
On October 6,2010, competing promotion Evolve announced that Austin Aries would make his debut for the promotion on November 20.
37.
On October 12,2010, Dragon Gate USA announced that Austin Aries had signed a contract with the promotion.
38.
On January 28,2011, at United: NYC, Austin Aries defeated Swann in a singles match.
39.
However, after the match Austin Aries feigned passing the torch to Chuck Taylor, Johnny Gargano and Rich Swann, the trio known collectively as Ronin, before turning on them and joining the promotion's top heel group, Blood Warriors, claiming to have found his purpose under the leadership of CIMA.
40.
On June 9,2011, it was reported that Austin Aries had left both Dragon Gate USA and Evolve to reportedly pursue a career outside of professional wrestling.
41.
On June 13,2011, at the tapings of the June 16 episode of Impact Wrestling, Austin Aries made a return to TNA, defeating Jimmy Rave and Kid Kash in a first round match of the X Division Showcase tournament for a contract with the promotion.
42.
Two weeks later, Austin Aries defeated Shelley in a singles match.
43.
On January 8,2012, at Genesis, Austin Aries successfully defended the X Division Championship in a four-way elimination match against Jesse Sorensen, Kid Kash and Zema Ion.
44.
On March 12, Austin Aries became the longest reigning TNA X Division Champion in history by breaking the previous record of 182 days, set by Christopher Daniels in 2005.
45.
Austin Aries turned face the following week, when he teamed with James Storm to defeat Ray and Bobby Roode in the main event.
46.
Austin Aries' team, led by Garett Bischoff, ended up defeating Ray's team, led by Eric Bischoff.
47.
Three days later at Sacrifice, Austin Aries defeated Bully Ray in a singles match, submitting him with the Last Chancery.
48.
Austin Aries relinquished the X Division Championship two weeks later, ending his record-breaking reign at 301 days.
49.
Three days later in the main event of Bound for Glory, TNA's largest annual event, Austin Aries lost the TNA World Heavyweight Championship to Hardy, ending his reign at 98 days.
50.
Austin Aries defeated Van Dam in the main event via disqualification, following interference from Bully Ray, but as the title does not change hands on a disqualification, Van Dam retained.
51.
The rivalry culminated in a three-way elimination match on January 13,2013, at Genesis, where Austin Aries failed again to regain the TNA World Heavyweight Championship from Hardy.
52.
Aries unmasked himself at the end of the show, after Hulk Hogan discovered the real Suicide and demanded the fake Suicide to unmask, and announced that he intended to trade in the X Division Championship for a World Heavyweight Championship match at Destination X The following week Aries lost the X Division Championship back to Sabin in a three-way match, which included the real Suicide, now known as Manik.
53.
Austin Aries attacked MVP, allowing Roode to win the match, turning heel .
54.
On June 15,2014, at Slammiversary, Austin Aries defeated Kenny King in a match to determine which one would face TNA World Heavyweight Champion Eric Young in a title match.
55.
Three weeks later, Austin Aries challenged Samoa Joe for his TNA X Division Championship, but was ultimately defeated.
56.
On January 7,2015, Austin Aries defeated Low Ki to regain the X Division Championship for the sixth time.
57.
At Lockdown, Austin Aries took part in the annual Lethal Lockdown match with Team Kurt Angle, defeating The Beat Down Clan.
58.
Austin Aries reformed the Dirty Heels with Bobby Roode, with the two challenging The Wolves to a best of 5 series for the Tag Team Titles.
59.
At Destination X, Austin Aries cashed in his Feast or Fired briefcase for an opportunity at the TNA World Heavyweight Championship on Kurt Angle, however Angle retained the championship.
60.
On June 28,2015, Austin Aries left TNA as his contract with the company expired.
61.
On March 9,2018, Austin Aries returned to Ring of Honor for the third time at ROH's 16th Anniversary pay-per-view, where he originally challenged Kenny King to a match for King's ROH World Television Championship at a later date, the only ROH singles title Austin Aries has yet to win.
62.
On January 22,2016, WWE announced that Austin Aries would be joining their NXT brand.
63.
Austin Aries was introduced by general manager William Regal before being attacked by Baron Corbin.
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Austin Aries defeated No Way Jose by submission at NXT TakeOver: Brooklyn II.
65.
On October 27, Austin Aries suffered a large orbital socket injury during a live event in Fresno, California, during a match against Nakamura and was expected to be injured until early 2017.
66.
Austin Aries called the triple threat match between Rich Swann, T J Perkins and The Brian Kendrick.
67.
Austin Aries provided commentary alongside Graves and Mauro Ranallo on 205 Live, as well as Main Event.
68.
However, Austin Aries lost to Neville during the pre-show in the opening match.
69.
Austin Aries again failed to win the Cruiserweight Championship after he was defeated by Neville at Extreme Rules in a submission match.
70.
On July 7,2017, Austin Aries was released from his WWE contract.
71.
In early 2018, Austin Aries made his official return to TNA, now known as Impact Wrestling, calling himself the "Belt Collector", displaying all of the championships he was holding in various other promotions.
72.
Austin Aries then defeated Eli Drake to win the Impact World Championship.
73.
At Slammiversary XVI, Austin Aries successfully retained his title against Moose.
74.
Reports later attributed Austin Aries getting up so fast following the finish of the match to a concussion Austin Aries suffered during the match.
75.
Dave Meltzer later reported that both Impact and Austin Aries started an online feud without management's permission.
76.
Austin Aries went on to wrestle on five episodes of their first season.
77.
On March 15,2019, Austin Aries returned to Warrior Wrestling at Warrior Wrestling 4 to face Eddie Edwards in a rematch.
78.
Austin Aries debuted at World Series Wrestling Australia's tour in 2017.
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Austin Aries wrestled against Ricochet and Brian Cage for the WSW championship at Adelaide's show, however he fell short on capturing the title.
80.
Austin Aries won the title at Sydney's show where he defeated Ricochet after an interference from Brian Cage.
81.
On December 4,2017, Austin Aries appeared on a show for the UK-based Defiant Wrestling promotion.
82.
Months later, at No Regrets 2018, Austin Aries lost the title to Rampage, in his final match for Defiant.
83.
On December 17,2017, Austin Aries defeated Mark Haskins at IPW:UK The Big Bang: Undisputed to win the IPW:UK World Championship.
84.
In June 2018 Austin Aries returned to WSW for another tour.
85.
Austin Aries then returned to WSW in November 2018, where he lost the WSW Heavyweight Championship to Robbie Eagles on November 26.
86.
On February 8,2018, Austin Aries debuted for Major League Wrestling at their Road to the World Championship event, after being backstage at their two previous events.
87.
Austin Aries debuted at MLW Fury Road, defeating Adam Brooks.
88.
On November 19,2021, the National Wrestling Alliance announced that Austin Aries would be competing in a match against Rhett Titus in a tournament for the NWA World Junior Heavyweight Championship at the NWA's next pay-per-view NWA Hard Times 2 on December 4,2021.
89.
Austin Aries would beat Titus at Hard Times 2 to progress to the semi-finals of the NWA Junior Heavyweight Championship Tournament.
90.
Austin Aries would beat Hawx on the February 5,2022, episode of NWA USA to progress to the final of the tournament, which would take place at the National Wrestling Alliance event Crockett Cup on March 20,2022.
91.
In February 2022, it was announced Austin Aries was joining the new Control Your Narrative wrestling promotion created by EC3 and Adam Scherr.
92.
Austin Aries later appeared as himself only on WWE 2K17 as a downloadable character as part of the "Future Stars" pack.
93.
Austin Aries has been a vegan since 2011 and has appeared in PETA videos encouraging the lifestyle.
94.
Austin Aries dated fellow professional wrestler Zelina Vega in the past, from 2012 to 2018.
95.
Austin Aries is a fan of the Green Bay Packers, Milwaukee Brewers, and Milwaukee Bucks and played both football and baseball growing up.
96.
Austin Aries has the Chinese character Ram tattooed on his upper left arm to signify the Chinese translation for Austin Aries, which is his ring name and his zodiac sign.
97.
On March 31,2021, Austin Aries temporarily deactivated his Twitter account after receiving backlash for his views criticizing the COVID-19 vaccine.