Ace Austin is all elite.
The former X-Division Champion shocked the masses when he made his debut against Ricochet on Collision a few weeks ago. Austin lost that match, but his performance was impressive enough to get him a contract.
Now we’ve heard from various sources on why the 28-year-old opted to leave TNA Wrestling. Austin puts it into perspective how his AEW signing came about and it was his top option out of all of the other companies (Transcript courtesy of Ringside News).
“The way that the whole thing actually kind of fell into place was pretty crazy.” Austin said on the Unrestricted podcast, “As far as considering AEW as an option, it was a top option—it was a no-brainer, exactly. When I went into free agency earlier this year, I really wasn’t sure what the next step would look like. I just took a little bit of time to catch my breath because I started wrestling when I was 17, debuted at 18, and it’s pretty much been 10 years nonstop. Even during COVID, I was still regularly taping. So it was 10 years nonstop and six years on TV, never slowing down.”
Austin went further into depth about how he got into AEW and it was a “right time, right place” situation.
“Coming into free agency, I took a quick breath and started to have some conversations to see what the next steps might look like. Then I saw AEW was coming to Cincinnati, and it was like—wow. My career has had so many instances of right place, right time, and this just started to fall into place. I really started tuning more into what AEW was doing recently, especially with the accessibility on HBO Max.
And the way his match against Ricochet came about was through a simple text.
“So AEW comes to Cincinnati, and I hit them up and said, ‘Hey, that’s an hour from my house. I’d love to come hang out and say hello to my friends there and make some new ones.’ I wasn’t sure what the vibe would be like, but everyone was so warm and welcoming. Almost everyone there I’ve met or have some sort of relationship with. I was actually only planning on coming Thursday, and then on Wednesday I got a text: ‘Hey, are you here?’ The answer is yes, even if you aren’t. Not at that moment, but I was an hour away and could be there immediately. So they had me come down, do the promo, and then Thursday was the match.”
AEW is still in the phase of figuring out Ace Austin within the company. Hopefully, he’s given a real chance to shine instead of being shipped off to Ring of Honor or dark matches.