At the end of the day everyone has different goals. Some people, like myself, are trying to keep size on. Some people might come in and have the opposite. So, one size doesn't fit all for nutrition.
— Austin Aries
Is it supposed to be a championship for a certain style of wrestlers? For wrestlers under a certain weight limit? I think over the years the one thing that has held the X-Division from being in a certain spot is that it doesn't have a definition.
I've always felt that wherever I go, I have to carry myself like I'm a main event guy and like I'm a star.
Every time Samoa Joe and myself have stepped in the ring, we've always created a little bit of magic.
I just want to be the greatest man that I can be while I'm alive, and in that, you have to find the truth. Find the hard truth about yourself.
I think it's funny, if you look at Brian Cage, the guy calls himself 'The Machine.' 265 lbs and spends a lot of time in the gym and eating chicken breasts. The guy comes in Impact Wrestling and instead of going after a guy like Moose or Killer Kross, who is he beating up? A bunch of guys half his size? Walking around like he's a big man.
I always say men's facial hair is kind of like women's makeup. We know how to contour our face real nice and give ourselves nice angles and make our nose look not quite as crooked as it is.
Sometimes it can be easy to forget where your roots are or where you came from.
Right before I came back to TNA, I had made the decision to just sort of step away from wrestling. Therefore I really walked into TNA holding nothing back and let the chips fall where they fell.
I think that weight divisions in wrestling is a little silly as we never adhere to them.
I think that once I started connecting dots of where my food was coming from and the reality of that, as opposed to maybe what you think it is as a little kid, and the realities of how my food was getting to my plate and what the real effects of that are. When I started connecting those dots, I couldn't disconnect them.
I'm kind of a skeptic at heart.
I like nice food. Some people like cars, nice clothes, a nice house, and I like that stuff, but I like nice foods.
The more you control where your food comes from instead of relying on restaurants, fast food joints, convenience stores and other processed sources, the better off you're going to be.
As for regret, more than anything else, my regret lies in that the WWE Universe never really got the real Austin Aries. Outside of commentary, they missed out on the chance to hear and see me be me, and do what I do best.
I get paid to put tweets out sometimes.
There was a time that I really loved pro wrestling, but I'm not a pro wrestling junkie, per se.
What the general public doesn't always understand is that wrestlers often only have hours to put things together, not days or weeks, except in certain cases.
When I first started training, I guess the fact that I was undersized, it just didn't register initially. Obviously, I knew I wasn't huge and there were some bigger guys in the territories at the time, but I guess I never looked at it as a hinderance.
I think it's always good to have realistic short term goals and then lofty longer term goals.
I've been trying to make it my own way in an industry full of heels walking around in babyface costumes, and that brought out the worst in me.
I battle with things like depression in my life, I battle with things like anxiety, I battle with things like attention deficit disorder, and I ignored them all.
Obviously, you'd like your titles to be defended at major pay-per-views. I think most fans would agree with that although it doesn't mean that always has to be the case.
I always wanted facial hair as soon as I could get it.
I was a choir boy my whole life.
As far as being the longest-reigning X Division champion, it's a pretty remarkable achievement, due to all the men who have held it over the years.
I competed at 'WrestleMania 33,' and I'm telling you, leading up to what should have been the biggest moment of my life, I couldn't find an ounce of joy.
You always have to keep evolving. You're always trying to improve. If you're at a standstill, you're falling behind.
At the end of the day, you can change coaches and managers and players, but if there's something intrinsic, something wrong, then you have to look at what the common denominator is, and, usually, you've got to look at the ownership because everything runs from there.
I love pizza hands down.
I'm about making history and doing things that haven't been done before.
I'm interested to work with Lucha Underground and as champion that would put me in the mix to work with them.
I think that there is a lot of people that miss what pro wrestling can give them too. I don't watch a ton of it. I watch enough to see what is going on. I think it is also good to not be watching it because your ideas are your ideas.
I really don't watch a lot of wrestling.
I'm not going to lie. I'd love to have the mic in my hand opposite of Dixie Carter in the ring and say my piece, say what's on my mind. And if she's willing to sit there and listen to it, I think it could make for some great television.
Chris Jericho is a guy who I grew up really appreciating what he did in the ring.
WWE is the biggest entity in professional wrestling and if you want to prove yourself to be one of the greatest or one of the best, then that's the only place you can do it.
I have a backbone; that doesn't make me a heel. That makes me the biggest babyface there is.
I was the X-Division champion and competing against guys mostly my size, and I dominated them.
The connector part of the mustache to the beard wasn't always really strong for me. That's kind of how it morphed, and that's kind of how my beard comes in.
Wisconsin will always be home to me in a nostalgic kind of way.
I've been Austin almost half my life. In almost every public setting, that's why I'm there - to be Austin Aries.
The perception is if you are not 206lbs then you can't be considered main event talent, which is foolish.
From the moment I became a free agent, the WWE opportunity was the one I wanted. Obviously, there were strong plays made by some other companies, but in the end, when WWE offered me an opportunity, I could not turn it down.
We live in a world with fake news being put out there. You don't really know what to trust, and it's a real danger to society.
As long as I can get Bobby Heenan in my corner, then I'm a happy man because, to me, Bobby Heenan is one of the most underrated performers of all time. He's in my top five of all time performers because I don't think people realize just how good he was.
In my opinion nobody owns the patent on the art form of professional wrestling and the way it does its business.
Defending the Impact title against Jay Lethal would be phenomenal.
Listen, things change, that's part of life. Part of what makes you great is being able to move when you need to move. Being limber, agile and roll with the punches so to speak.
I don't have a lot of free time with the amount of traveling that I do, but most of pro wrestling isn't catered to me. I am not a kid. There are a lot of guys that complain to me about the product, but it's like, well, you are not a kid. It is catered to sell t-shirts and merchandise to kids and their parents.
