Aldis states that whatever is next, he has to be willing to commit 100 percent.
Over the weekend, the IMPACT World Championship match between Nick Aldis and champion Alex Shelley headlined Slammiversary. Coming out of the bout, it was reported by PWInsider that Aldis finished up his run with the company. He returned at the Rebellion pay-per-view in April.
Aldis spoke about his future while on the Hitting The Turnbuckle podcast. He said he does not know what’s around the corner. He continued by saying whatever that next thing is could be completely different than what he’s expecting but he has to be willing to commit. Aldis said he’s paid his dues in wrestling and how that manifests itself is out of his control but what he can control is being a professional and contributing as much as he can.
This portion of the conversation started with the podcast co-host mentioning that Cody Rhodes went back to WWE as the modern version of himself and Matt Cardona saying if he ever went back, it would not be as ‘Zack Ryder’. Nick was asked how important it is to remain ‘Nick Aldis’ wherever he goes next.
You just don’t know what’s around the corner and the lay of the land now could be completely different to six months from now or a year from now. In this business, you have to be willing to accept the things that you cannot change and the things that are out of your control and you have to do as much as you can with what you can control. I know that’s sort of a non-answer but it reflects where I’m at because, you know, I don’t know what’s around the corner for me. But, you have to just approach it with a calm belief in your own ability and look, the opportunities that could be lying ahead for me could be something completely different to what I was expecting. But again, I have to be willing to commit to it 100 percent because I’ve put in my 10,000 hours in this business, right? So how that manifests itself, some of that is out of my control but what is in my control is being a professional and contributing as best as I can.
He then dove into his recent run with IMPACT. He said it was an easy collaboration because the communication was clear. The idea was always for Aldis to come in and headline Slammiversary.
I’ve had such a blast doing this run with IMPACT. I sort of liken it to how the territory days used to be, where it was sort of always laid out this way like, hey, I don’t think I want to — I’d just been under contract for four years. I didn’t want to just immediately jump into another long-term agreement and it worked out well in that regard because that way, you eliminate any sort of miscommunication… A huge part of wrestling and I think a lot of reasons why relationships break down in wrestling, it almost always comes down to communication and invariably, it becomes, the wrestler, ‘You promised me this’ and the promoter says, ‘Plans change, things change’ and so there’s always this inevitable sort of lack of communication which leads to potential conflict and acrimony and in this example, it was so easy because it was kind of like, ‘Hey, how about you come in. We’ve got this idea for you to main event Slammiversary.’ ‘I appreciate that. That’s a big honor. Thank you very much. Let’s do it.’ There’s no time wasting. You’re not going, oh, where is this going? What about this? What about that? It’s like, here’s the business, here’s what we’re doing and now we can just focus fully on executing, which, I wish there were more opportunities for guys to work like that in wrestling.
He further expressed that he had a great time there and is honored he was able to be part of Alex Shelley’s story as World Champion. He praised Shelley for what he does behind the scenes, sharing that Shelley hosts training sessions for talents before tapings. Aldis added that early in his career, Shelley went out of his way to help him improve.
I had a great time being with IMPACT and like I said, it’s been a joy to be part of Alex Shelley’s ascendency, and we wove it into the story obviously. But you know, he was one of the guys who was like, ‘Hey, we get together and train and practice at TV. You should come. We’ll show you some stuff.’ A.J. (Styles) did that with me, (Samoa) Joe did that with me. But Patrick was the one who really went out of his way to be like, ‘You’re good at this. Why don’t you try that?’ ‘Hey, if that thing isn’t your thing then just stay away from it.’ ‘Here’s how you do this, here’s how you do that’ and we were talking about it the other day because we were talking about some of the guys on the roster who we identify as having a lot of potential at IMPACT and he’s still doing that. He’s holding training sessions with all of the young up-and-coming talent at 1 o’clock in the afternoon at TVs and stuff and he’s the World Champion. It’s an admirable thing so I was very honored to do the honors for him because he deserves it and I was really glad that we got to tell that story.
Aldis competed against the returning Eric Young at the post-Slammiversary television taping. That match is going to air on a future episode of IMPACT on AXS.
If the quotes in this article are used, please credit Hitting The Turnbuckle with an H/T to POST Wrestling for the transcriptions.
