Austin Aries: The Early Years

                Charisma. Explosiveness. It’s all words that can be perfectly associated with one man. One man whom many may call “The Greatest Man Who Ever Lived”. I’m speaking of course, about the one, the only, Austin Aries.

*Yep. That Just Happened*

                Austin Aries, real name Daniel Solwood Jr., began his pro wrestling career in early 2000 when he started training under Eddie Sharkey and Terry Fox. His debut came mere months later when he faced “Sherriff” Johnny Emrald. Aries would then travel the Midwest, wrestling for small companies for the next 4 years, until Ring of Honor took notice and quickly signed Austin to a talent contract. Aries would make his debut for Ring of Honor on April 24^th, 2004 in a 4 Corner Survival Match, which pitted Aries against Rocky Romero, Jimmy Rave, and the winner of that match, Nigel McGuiness. Aries was scheduled to return to ROH for another show on May 22^nd that featured a one night only tournament that would feature young, up and coming talent in ROH. Plans would change however, as Aries was drafted to a stable that saw Aries align himself with Alex Shelly, Roderick Strong and Jack Evans, forming the stable known as Generation Next. Generation Next would take all of those spots in the tournament and even took their stable name from the name of ROH’s event that evening.

                Generation Next would continue to team together and gain one huge addition to their family when, on December 26^th, 2004, Aries was the first man to beat the then longest reigning ROH World Champion in history, Samoa Joe. Aries’ title success also granted him the spot as head trainer at the Ring of Honor Wrestling School, replacing CM Punk when Punk agreed to sign a contract with the WWE. Aries would then carry the ROH World Championship for six months, making non-stop defenses that would also be international, until Austin lost the championship to CM Punk on June 18^th, 2005. But gold would not be lost from Aries’ waist for long, as he teamed up with Generation Next member Roderick Strong, and the two pursued the ROH Tag Team Championships. They were finally successful in obtaining the gold as they defeated Sal Rinauro and Tony Mamaluke for the Tag Team Championships.

*The Start Of Something Huge*

 Aries would then compete in a first time ever match that pitted Austin against Pro Wrestling Noah star and former GHC Junior Heavyweight Champion KENTA. The match was highly successful but Aries suffered defeat at the hands of KENTA’s vicious finishing move, the Go 2 Sleep.

                Aries and Strong finally lost their Tag Team Titles to The Kings of Wrestling, Chris Hero and Claudio Castagnoli, on September 16^th, but continued to team together for the rest of the year. The team would fall apart on February 16^th as Roderick attacked Austin after their tag team title match against Christopher Daniels and Matt Sydal (aka WWE Star Evan Bourne). Strong would go on to form a new stable, The No Remorse Corp., with Davey Richards, and feud with Aries’ new stable, The Resilience, comprised of himself, Matt Cross and Eric Stevens. The stables would feud for months, until Aries earned another shot at the ROH World Title against the monstrous Japanese ROH Champion, Takeshi Morishima, and was unsuccessful. But on May 4^th, 2007, Aries was pulled from all future ROH shows as he was under contract with Total Nonstop Action wrestling.

                Aries caught the eye of many people in TNA very quickly and was signed to them by 2005. Shortly after Aries signed, he formed a stable with former Generation Next members Alex Shelly and Roderick Strong. Strong and Aries however suffered suspensions from the company after deciding to stay in  Long Island for a Ring of Honor show, despite TNA’s last minute requests to travel to Florida due to the potential Snowstorm. Fast Forward to October 2006 and Aries would be re-packaged in TNA as a brand new wrestler under the name Austin Starr, who quickly became associated with Kevin Nash and his group Paparazzi Productions, after Paparazzi Productions lost Johnny Devine as a member. After the Paparazzi Invitational Tournament, Starr feuded with Senshi (aka Low-Ki) for months, until Aries suffered yet another suspension from TNA. During the suspension, Aries was granted his official release form the company, but it wouldn’t take long for Aries to bounce right back from his suspension…

Changes Are A'Comin....

Alright everyone.

This blog project has recently become rather hectic, and alot to keep up with. So i'm going to be making permanent changes to my blog in order to make things easier on me, and maybe even get a small staff involved with the project so my load is quite lightened.

The original format was a new character every week with so many entires on one guy. We're going to stretch those out now and cover one specific wrestler per month, but still follow a similar format to what we've already got set up. So it'll look a little like this:

Week 1: Tale of the Tape (now featuring movesets and quick snippets of in ring action)

Week 2: The Early Years

Week 3: The Main Event Status

Week 4: Top 5 Career Moments

This should lighten the workload considerably and make things alot less stressful for me, and whomever decides to hop in on the project.

Our wrestler of th emonth for this month will still be "The Greatest Man Who Ever Lived" Austin Aries however, so stay tuned!!!

Austin Aries: The Tale of the Tape

NAME: Austin Aries

HEIGHT: 5'9

WEIGHT: 202 lbs

HOMETOWN: Milwaukee, Wisconsin

FINISHER(S):

450 Splash

Brainbuster

ENTRANCE THEME

A Special Look At Christopher Daniels

This week's blog post has taken a bit of a hit thanks to the online SOPA and PIPA protests, and from me being sick, so today, to jump back into things, I'm going to show you the style of wrestler that Christopher Daniels is, thanks in part to YouTube User TheSuicidalDragon

With a fierce style like this, Daniels has enjoyed success in every company he's been in, earning such accolades as being the first ever Ring of Honor Tag Team Champion.

Christopher Daniels: The Tale of the Tape

It's week 2!!!

Name: Christopher Daniels

From: The City Of Angels

Heightt: 6’0”

Weight: 224 lbs

Finishing Move(s): Angel's Wings, The Best Moonsault Ever

Top 5 Phenomenal Moments

All week, we've been highlighting the illustrius career of one of this century's greatest performers, but today, as they say, all good things must come to an end. Today we're going to go through a whole timeline of this young man's career and share 5 of his most stand out moments....

5) A.J. Styles Wrestles TNA's First Match Ever

4) A.J. Captures The TNA Tag Team Championships With Christopher Daniels from America's Most Wanted

3) A.J. Wrestles The First Match For TNA's X Division Championship Belt

2) A.J. Wrestles TNA's Greatest Triple Threat Match Ever

*So Great That It Needs 2 Videos*

*Part 2*

1) A.J. Captures His First TNA Heavyweight Championship

Now wasn't that simply Phenomneal?

One Moment Is All It Takes To Be "Phenomenal"

            Over the course of A.J. Styles' career, you've seen ups, downs, read about thrilling moments and about every foot step A.J. has taken in the world of professional wrestling. It's hard to really figure out one certain moment in A.J.'s career that truly defines him or makes people even talk about him at the water cooler the next day. So, we'll travel to a more recent moment in A.J.'s career that made people talk about him; the moment his stable, Fortune, became the good guys again.

        THE SETUP

                      2011 was a hectic year in TNA, but one they were hoping would be a huge one. Dixie Carter, one of the owners of the company, made a legendary deal in signing the legendary performer Hulk Hogan as her co-owner in TNA, hoping things would be different and change dramatically for TNA. Little did Dixie know, Hogan had other plans, as afew months later, Hogan took every ounce of the company from Carter and joined the heel stable Immortal. Immortal's ranks grew quickly, as the faction known as Fortune, led by legendary perfomer Ric Flair, would hop right on the bandwagon and become part of Immortal.

        

         For months, Immortal ran things in TNA. Everything that happened in the company happened at either the approval or dissapproval of Immortal. Hell, Immortal even gained the WWE fan favorite Jeff Hardy, as Jeff became the most important person in Immortal's ranks. But not everyone was persuaded to do things Immortal's way, as former WWE star Ken kennedy, perfomring in TNA under the name Mr. Anderson, would set his sights on Jeff Hardy, the then TNA Heavyweight Champion. Hardy and Kennedy had tons of grueling matches, back and forth and back forth went the tides but thanks to interfearance from Immortal, Hardy would constantly come out on top. That's when Immortal started getting a warning from Abyss that "They" were coming, and "They" would change things in TNA for good. Well, Jeff Hardy and the rest of Immortal would find out the hard way that "They" were right under their noses all along, and it would cost Immortal their alst chance at regaining the TNA Heavyweight Championship.....