Austin Aries has been released

[KaiserGlider]

A shame, seeing as how he was one of the few cruiserweights that was over, and he never seemed to win a big match in his NXT/WWE run. Hope there's still good things in his future.

[Hanley!]

I'm not at all surprised by this. He always had a high opinion of himself and wasn't afraid to speak up when he thought he was being used badly. Didn't seem to be the most patient of sorts either. Apparently he wanted to move up to the main roster instead of being used as a cruiserweight, and asked for his release when he didn't get it.

It's understandable. Aries is a great talent and it would have been awesome if it had worked out for him in WWE. But he just lost three matches against Neville and who knows when he would have been back in the title mix after that feud conclusively ended. That would have left him having matches on 205 Live that nobody is watching. it was probably smart to get out now rather than fester away there for the next year getting more and more frustrated.

I'm actually happy with this. He'll probably go to Ring of Honor or New Japan where I'll get more entertainment from him, so it works out for me. I always root for great wrestlers to excel in WWE because that's the pinnacle of wrestling. But it's very possible to have a worthy and lucrative career in wrestling outside of WWE right now, with New Japan and the indies becoming more and more popular. And in 2017 it's definitely better to have a great career outside of WWE than a mediocre career with WWE. I wish more talent would realise that. A lot of underused WWE guys would be much more successful if they left the company.

[VaderBomb]

Oh man. Good for Aries but I really wish that we could've seen more of him in WWE. He's better off in other promotions for sure but it kind of sucks that it had to come to this.