It’s been a while, so you may not remember the work/shoot angle/controversy surrounding Austin Aries at Impact’s Bound for Glory pay-per-view (PPV) last fall.
If you don’t recall, after some personal tweets about his wife, Taya Valkyrie, #1 contender Johnny Impact and World champ Aries “brawled” at Abyss’ Hall of Fame induction ceremony/press conference. Then after Impact beat A-Double for the belt at the show in New York City, he no sold Johnny Many Name’s Starship Pain finisher, flipped off announcer/booker Don Callis and stormed off into the October night.
Now that you’re caught up, here’s why we’re talking about it again...
Impact is teasing an announcement for this Friday’s episode of their show on Twitch/Pursuit. One of their former World champions is returning to the company for their recently relocated WrestleMania week show:
A former World Champion in IMPACT Wrestling will return to main event United We Stand on April 4th!
— IMPACT (@IMPACTWRESTLING) February 6, 2019
Find out who this Friday on IMPACT! #IMPACT pic.twitter.com/lmBnxwo9qy
This afternoon, Aries quote-tweeted some braggadoico from Sami Callihan, slamming the oVe leader on each of his “best of the year” accolades and dropping a Bound for Glory hashtag at the end of it:
And #behindthecurtain you only had to:
— Austin Aries (@AustinAries) February 6, 2019
Break a guys face due to AMATEUR execution. #MomentOfTheYear
Ignore and STEAL 10+mins of my PPV main event match time for yourself. #MatchOfTheYear
Get NOBODY over but you, at your colleagues expense.#WrestlerOfTheYear
So, about #BFG... https://t.co/YsmlBkBP2N
The first and last references are pretty clear, as the first is in reference to Callihan hitting Eddie Edwards in the face with a bat and seriously injuring him during their feud, and the other is a general comment about Sami’s 2018 work and its effect on the company and his co-workers.
Brainstorming with the Cagesider covering Impact last year, my man Kyle Decker, we had trouble pinpointing Aries’ beef with Callihan’s “Match of the Year” with Pentagon Jr. at Slammiversary XVI. According to Wikipedia, that match went 18 minutes while Aries vs. Moose got 15 after it. Our system shows the live blog last being updated at 10:55PM eastern, so they didn’t just hit a broadcast cutoff or something, either.
Which is... probably overthinking things, honestly. But it would also be more signs pointing to this all being a work.
We’l find out on Friday, or the next time the Greatest Man That Ever Lived tweets.
When you’ve been biting your tongue for so long and so hard that it’s become numb, it feel good to bring some tingle back to it. For everyone that’s been wanting to peek #behindthecurtain...remember, it might not reveal what you think.
— Austin Aries (@AustinAries) February 6, 2019