Austin Aries got himself into some hot water this past weekend with tweets made towards Johnny Impact aka John Morrison) and wife Taya Valkyrie.
In a now deleted tweet, Aries wrote, “Ahh, the form of discrimination that’s still super cool: Short Shaming. If I joked race, retards, your gay look…if I fat shamed your husky wife, INSTANT OUTRAGE!! But you can predictably cut on me over my height, genetics I don’t control, and it’s just FUNNY!”
The exchange began harmless enough, with the two men building their Bound For Glory title bout.
Aries' tweet soon followed. Valkyrie offered a series of replies.
Appearing on Wrestling Observer Live, Aries attempted to explain his tweet.
"When it comes to the short things, it's something I've dealt with my whole life. I'm used to it. It drives me. If you want to make things personal, I can get personal and clap back," said Aries. "If you read my tweet and actually read what I'm saying; I'm not condoning any of those things. I'm saying, if I were to make a joke on any of those things or mention these words or type them out in a derogatory way that people would be outraged. In this day and age, we're outraged about making fun of people or telling them that they are less than for things that are out of their control. Yet, when it comes to people's heights, it's ok for people to continue to use that. I was simply pointing it out."
Aries noted that in building his match with Morrison, he's never taken personal shots.
"In everything I've done to build this match, the things I've done and talked about, I've never taken any personal shots at this guy. I never talked about his real deficiencies. I've talked about doing all these different things and not focusing and concentrating, but never talked about maybe the fact that you've never been the guy that you look like because your personality is non-existent. You're kind of a dork," he said. "You come out with this cool image but anyone in the back knows that you're not cool. I didn't say any of that. I didn't take personal shots. If anything, I put this guy over and talked about how good he was in the ring, but did he have the drive and focus to step up?"
The Impact World Champion went on to state that he's been fighting an uphill battle his entire career due to his height, feeling he's had to work twice as hard to stand out.
Aries will put his Impact World Title on the line against Impact at Bound For Glory on Sunday, Oct. 14. Fightful will provide live coverage of the event.
