Is Austin Aries taking time off from WWE?

There were mixed signals flying around the wrestling web regarding Raw and 205 Live’s Austin Aries.

Last Sunday (June 4) on the Extreme Rules pay-per-view (PPV), A-Double lost his third shot at Neville’s Cruiserweight title. Booking-wise, it presented a legitimate “what now?” moment. Each of the setbacks featured moments where Aries could or should have won, so he was protected, but it was also clear current plans don’t feature him unseating the self-proclaimed King of the division.

A Tweet he sent out after the event appeared to be kayfabe cover for some time off, and/or some character development when he returned:

While he’s not exactly Chris Jericho, Aries does have a new book to promote. Time off to do so could line up nicely with his on-screen story.

On Wednesday, while on Busted Open Radio promoting Food Fight: My Plant Based Journey From The Bingo Hall to The Big Time, the two-time Ring of Honor World champ hinted he might need some days off to heal up from life in the business:

I’ve got some stuff going on, but just to be fair you could probably say that for a lot of the locker room. It’s kind of part of what we do, I don’t think anyone is ever 100%.

So I got a couple things going on and obviously at this point it might be a good time to take a little break which really could consist of two days to just adjust some of those things, try and get my mind and my body right and then come back and figure out what’s gonna be next and what the direction’s gonna be.

Seems the “could consist of two days” meant exactly that. Aries told USA Today’s For The Win he will be working upcoming Raw brand house shows, “I’m flying out Friday morning and I’ll be working the live events this weekend,” and went on to criticize websites who used the Busted Open quote to indicate he was going to be on the bench for a while:

I figure no matter what interview I do, the real good “journalists” are going to find the completely irrelevant quotes that will drum up some controversy and stick it on their page to get some clicks and completely miss the real context of what the interview is about. That’s what we do nowadays and call it “journalism.”

So, that seems to be that. Aries is fine and on the job for WWE.

Does that mean he’ll be on TV soon? And if so, doing what?

As he told For the Win:

As far as what’s next for me from a creative standpoint or what my next move is, that’s to be determined… You just have to keep tuned in and find out what’s going to happen.