There are some men in wrestling who never quite fit into the neat cardboard box of kayfabe hero or villain. They come in sharp, jagged, like glass on concrete, leaving you bleeding before you realize you’ve even stepped. Austin Aries is one of those men. He’s the kind of bastard you don’t invite to Thanksgiving, but you’ll pay to see him wrestle on Christmas night because deep down you need somebody to spit in the soup.
Born Daniel Solwold Jr., Aries didn’t walk into wrestling like a wide-eyed fanboy. He crawled in, scratched in, clawed his way through Midwest armories that reeked of stale beer and burned popcorn. He came from Milwaukee, a city where dreams are made of Miller Lite cans and broken jukeboxes, where the factories were shutting down but the wrestling rings were still breathing smoke. Aries was small by the swollen standards of the industry—maybe 5’9” on a good day when his boots were thick and his hair was puffed. But the man could wrestle. God, he could wrestle. Snap suplexes so tight they looked like a guillotine. Dropkicks that cracked like a gunshot.
He was never supposed to be the guy. Wrestling is a land of giants, but Aries decided he’d make his own land, plant his own flag in the dirt. If the mountain wouldn’t let him climb, he’d set the damn thing on fire.
Ring of Honor: The First Crown
It was in Ring of Honor where Aries first raised hell, back when ROH was a blood cult of smart fans and dangerous workers, a proving ground for the misfits and the future stars. Samoa Joe had been champion for nearly two years, a reign that felt Biblical, as if Joe himself had carved commandments into the backs of his opponents. Aries stepped up in 2004, and nobody gave him a chance. He was too small, too smug, too mouthy.
But Aries didn’t wrestle like a man with doubts. He hit Joe with everything—knees, suplexes, kicks that rattled teeth like loose piano keys. And then, in December, against all logic and body size, he beat him. Ended the most celebrated reign in indie history. Austin Aries, the cocky little kid with a bodybuilder’s chest on a cruiserweight’s frame, stood tall as ROH World Champion.
He’d go on to become the first two-time champion in company history, stacking his name alongside the cult saints of ROH. To the fans, Aries was a revelation: proof that size wasn’t destiny. To his peers, he was a warning shot. The little man could carry a big gun.
TNA and the Grand Stage
Then came TNA—Total Nonstop Action, that glorious car crash of a promotion that promised to be the future but often felt like wrestling’s fever dream. Aries landed there in 2005, reinventing himself as “The Greatest Man That Ever Lived.” It was braggadocio, it was arrogance—but damn if it didn’t fit him like a custom-tailored suit.
The X-Division was his playground. He could fly, he could grapple, he could talk you into hating him and then wrestle you into loving him. He held the X-Division Title multiple times, each reign stitched together with promos that dripped disdain and matches that dripped sweat and brilliance. He wasn’t just wrestling; he was telling you he was better, then going out and proving it until you were forced to nod, even through clenched teeth.
In 2012, in a move that felt like the walls were cracking, Aries cashed in the X-Division Title for a shot at the TNA World Heavyweight Championship. Against Bobby Roode, he wrestled like a man possessed, like all the years of “too small, too arrogant, too indie” had boiled down into one fight. And he won. Austin Aries, 5’9”, 202 pounds of pure nerve, stood as the world champion in a company that had once defined itself on the shoulders of giants.
WWE and the Cruel Joke of Timing
But wrestling isn’t a fairytale, and Aries wasn’t built to play the prince. He signed with WWE in 2016, landing in the cruiserweight division—a sideshow brand wrapped in purple ropes. They gave him a headset before they gave him a push, sticking him behind the announce desk like a well-spoken court jester. Aries smiled through gritted teeth, but when he finally got in the ring, he showed why he’d been signed in the first place. His matches with Neville for the Cruiserweight Title in 2017 were some of the best of that year—fast, brutal, technical masterpieces that should’ve been career-makers.
Instead, Aries lost. Again and again. Three straight title matches, three straight failures. The fans were with him, but the office wasn’t. WWE never trusted him to be anything more than a good hand, a name to fill a slot. And just like that, he was gone. Released in 2017, left to wander again.
The Indie King of Nowhere
Since then, Aries has been everywhere—Impact, NWA, the independents, even flirting with MLW. He’s picked up belts like loose change, his suitcase always heavy with gold but his legacy always just out of reach. He calls himself the “Belt Collector,” a man who measures his worth in metal plates and leather straps. And in many ways, that’s Austin Aries: perpetually fighting for validation, perpetually misunderstood, perpetually the outsider with something to prove.
But Aries isn’t just the belts. He’s the attitude. He’s the guy who’ll cut a promo so acidic it burns through the screen. He’s the guy who’ll no-sell your handshake, no-sell your respect, because he doesn’t need it. The fans might boo, the wrestlers might gripe, but Aries? Aries thrives on the hate.
The Bukowski of the Ring
If you squint, Aries looks like a man straight out of a Bukowski stanza—half genius, half son of a bitch. Too small for the heavyweight clubs, too proud for the midcard drudgery, too honest for the corporate machine. He’s wrestling’s drunk poet, spitting truth between the ropes and pissing people off outside of them. He’s burned bridges, sure, but he’s also built bonfires of great matches that fans still talk about years later.
There’s a loneliness to Aries’ career, the kind that hangs on men who know they’re better than the world will ever admit. He’s 46 now, and the years are showing, but the ego hasn’t dulled. He still struts, still sneers, still wrestles like he’s out to prove a point. Maybe he always will.
Legacy of a Villain
Austin Aries may never go down as one of the industry’s great heroes. He may never headline WrestleMania, may never have his face on lunchboxes. But his name will always be whispered by the diehards, the tape traders, the ones who love wrestling when it’s raw and unpolished. He’ll be remembered as a man who fought for respect in an industry that tried to make him a side act.
And maybe that’s the greatest legacy of all.
Because wrestling isn’t just about heroes and villains. It’s about the men who stand in the smoke, who take the mic and tell you they’re the greatest—and then wrestle until you almost believe them. Austin Aries is that man. Too small, too loud, too real. The last real heel in the room.