Work or shoot, Austin Aries’ antics after losing the title have people talking

While the ending of the Bound for Glory pay-per-view (PPV) was Johnny Impact winning the world title from Austin Aries, the chatter is all about Austin Aries’ antics right after.

Johnny Impact won with the Starship Pain finisher. However, Austin Aries didn’t sell it for long. Seconds later he was up jawing at Don Callis, who is the announcer but also the Executive Vice President of the company. He then flipped off the crowd and immediately left.

That has fans playing our favorite game “Work or shoot?” Was Aries legit angry about something or is this part of a story?

If I were to venture a guess, I’d say it’s a work. Austin Aries cut a promo in the middle of the night, playing on the personal issues between him and Johnny Impact. In that promo, he said “I don’t trust management around here.” (It’s just before the 2 minute mark.)

That line alone has me feeling that this is all a work to get people to talk more about the finish. (And we are!) The entire build to this match was mainly a blurred work/shoot. Austin Aries sent out offensive tweets insulting Johnny’s wife Taya Valkyrie and then deleted them. Johnny and Taya went on TMZ to trash Aries. This moment would fit into all of it as well as play into the image fans have of Aries (which is based in some realty) that Aries is difficult to work with.

Could it be a shoot? Of course. We don’t know.

It’s always possible that Aries didn’t like the planned finished and had something to say about it. (This wasn’t a screw job as Aries took the pin 1-2-3 clean.) Maybe the promotion felt his tweets were too far and this is punishment. Maybe he’s not happy with some overall direction.

Or maybe these are questions they want us to ask after the show to keep Impact on our lips for a little bit.

What do you say, folks? Work or shoot?

You can find all the results from Bound for Glory here.