Nick Aldis talks turning down AEW, building the NWA brand, and more!

DDT: What was your motivation behind returning to IMPACT for that brief stint in 2015?

Aldis: Well, the short stint, it was never a contract. It always just a negotiated thing where they’d pay me this much and I’d go and do it. I knew Jeff [Jarrett] was having problems and I knew it was a chance for him to get back on the saddle and I believed he deserved to run the company and take on that product. I did it out of loyalty to Jeff.

I don’t what the reality of the situation was, but at the time there were three things that factored into my decision to go back. One, the money was decent. Two, it was a favor to Jeff. And three, at the time it was implied it was a pathway for me to do the World of Sport show with ITV.

We even got as far as me walking out and doing a press conference with ITV and World of Sport. We were supposed to be working together and I don’t know how all of that changed and how all of that blew up, but honestly, I felt like I was used like a bargaining chip in that and they were also using that as a way to entice me and come on be on IMPACT as well.

There was some dishonesty there, but I don’t where it fell apart, hence why I never signed a contract and I was just kind of going show by show and it was an option for me to work with Alberto [El Patron]. I’d always admired him and wanted to work with him and so that was the final thing before I said, “Okay, cool, I’ll come in and work with Alberto, that’s fine.” And that was that.