MLW: The return of Austin Aries is a mistake

Major League Wrestling has been one of the most visible indie promotions of the past year or so. With eyes on MLW through beIN Sports, YouTube, and FiteTV the scrutiny of bad decision-making is ever-present. As Austin Aries is welcomed back into the fold, yet another controversial figure muddies up the Major League waters.

Content warning: this post touches on the issues of sexual assault and domestic abuse.

We can all agree that what Austin Aries does between the ropes is remarkable. In no way would I ever diminish the skill or abilities of Aries, as he has routinely put on exceptional matches over the past 15 years in Ring of Honor, TNA and WWE amongst other promotions.

What can’t be ignored, however, is the man behind Austin Aries. As often as Aries has put on classic matches over the years, it seems he’s just as often put his foot in his mouth, made himself look like a fool on Twitter, or otherwise acted like a buffoon.

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For MLW, this feels like another bad call involving yet another talent with a problematic past. As a promotion building its brand and finding its footing in the wrestling landscape moving faster now than ever before, associating with those talents could turn out to be a huge mistake.

Aries has been his own worst enemy long before it became en vogue to simply tweet yourself into a corner. Back in 2013, he was still garnering negative attention based solely on his public actions rather than contemptible posts online.

Years back, Aries caught flack for bullying Christy Hemme in a TNA ring.

After Hemme accidentally announced the wrong names for an Aries/Bobby Roode tag team match, Aries cornered Hemme in the ring. He insisted she announce their names properly before climbing onto the second rope and posing with his crotch pushed toward her face.

Hemme played it off in the ring and continued on, but later responded to the event on Twitter calling it “unacceptable.” TNA, to their credit, did levy a fine against Aries with then head of the company Dixie Carter tweeting that the company had a “zero tolerance policy” for such behavior.

Aries, of course, had an extremely classy response to the situation on Twitter.

More recently, Aries made waves in IMPACT during his feud with Johnny Impact and Taya. In the build to an Impact World Championship match at Bound For Glory 2018, Aries took to Twitter to make disrespectful and offensive remarks.

In a since-deleted tweet, Aries wrote:

"Ahh, the form of discrimination that’s still super cool: Short Shaming.If I joked race, retards, your gay look…if I fat shamed your husky wife, INSTANT OUTRAGE!!But you can predictably cut on me over my height, genetics I don’t control, and it’s just FUNNY!#BoundForGlory"

Where do you begin with the number of things wrong with that tweet? As if it isn’t embarrassing enough to equate short jokes with jokes about race, he has the audacity to freely throw around the r-word and take a homophobic shot at his opponent before ending on the high note of a fat joke at the expense of Taya Valkyrie.

It’d almost be impressive to cram that much wrong into a single tweet if it wasn’t also so maddening. But, I suppose that’s just the type of groundbreaking activity you can expect from the self-proclaimed “Greatest Man That Ever Lived.”

At Bound For Glory, things took an even weirder turn. After the match, which saw Johnny Impact come out on top, Aries immediately sprang to his feet and exited the arena.

He didn’t remain on the mat to sell the grueling encounter he had just endured. He didn’t allow the moment to sink in and for IMPACT to bask in his moment of victory.

Instead, Aries took the opportunity to make the moment all about himself. As always, in the world of wrestling, the question is whether or not what we’ve just seen is really real or just a part of the show. According to Petey Williams, it was basically a true moment of Austin Aries being Austin Aries.

That phrase right there is part of the problem and part of a larger problem altogether. When someone is difficult, unprofessional, or just annoying it can be written off as “Aries being Aries.” It becomes a blanket excuse for someone’s childish behavior and an easy out from having to look the source of those problems in the face.

A Disappointing Trend In MLW

On a grander scale, the same “boys will be boys” mentality seems to trickle down to a number of MLW roster members who have, like Aries, found themselves in less than savory situations in the past.

In 2014, Teddy Hart – one half of the MLW World Tag Team Champions and the current MLW Middleweight Champion – was charged with sexual assault, unlawful confinement and three counts of assault.

Two years later the charges were officially withdrawn after it was found “the case did not meet the criteria needed to proceed.” Hart would go on to sign a peace bond agreeing to stave off contact with the alleged victims for a period of 2 years.

Hart’s challenges would continue in 2017 when he was arrested under a number of charges, including driving while intoxicated and evading police in Arlington, Texas.

In one of the more publicized industry stories of 2017, Rich Swann was arrested on charges of domestic battery and false imprisonment of his wife and fellow wrestler, Su Yung. The report, corroborated by witnesses, noted that Swann pulled a fleeing Yung back into their vehicle in the middle of traffic.

Charges were later dropped against Swann due to “insufficient evidence”, though Swann was still released from his WWE contract the following month.

While Hart and Swann both carry a different degree of baggage with them due to their issues being legal rather than purely behavioral, all three men help paint a picture of a wrestling scene more than willing to forget and forgive past transgressions of its male performers.

The charges against Hart and Swann in their abuse cases were eventually dropped, but that hardly signifies a victory or cleansing of their names in either situation. For Aries, his attitude and shameful behavior could continue to create problems for himself and whatever promotions he’s working.

All in all, the problem MLW continues to repeat is that it relies on these problematic performers when there are so many wrestlers without checkered pasts who are just as entertaining, just as talented and don’t create a culture of unearned forgiveness.

We’ve already seen the WWE blindly forgive or sugarcoat behavioral issues in the past, whether it’s the racist language of Hulk Hogan and Michael Hayes or the hateful comments spewed by Lars Sullivan. At a time in professional wrestling where companies have the opportunity to prove that they’re different and better than WWE at dealing with these issues, MLW is falling short.