Nick Aldis on his status with WWE, keeping his options open, losing to Cody Rhodes at the first All In, his proudest Impact moment

By Jason Powell, ProWrestling.net Editor (@prowrestlingnet)

Insight With Chris Van Vliet with guest Nick Aldis
Host: Chris Van Vliet
Podcast available via Podcasts.Apple.com

On his WWE status: “They just invited me to come and, you know, see how everything works and, you know, shadow as a producer and see and just sort of be part of the meetings and oversee the whole, you know, the whole television operation, which is, I mean, again, I’ve done a lot, I’ve worn a lot of hats. I think people who have followed my career, particularly in the last few years know that, in addition to wrestling, I was wearing a lot of hats behind the scenes, you know, at my last place. So, I certainly don’t feel like it’s a completely new sort of situation for me. Having said that, there’s pro wrestling, and then there’s WWE. So you know, just taking in just the sheer sort of volume of the operation, and just, you know, the number of people involved in that this, the scale of everything is like, just that alone is has been the basis of like, my time so far. But it’s like, it’s all very much, it’s all very much a sort of handshake situation at the moment very much a, hey, why don’t you come in and see how all this works? See, if you like it. I will say this. They’ve been very, very good to me, and very, very accommodating. As far as they’ve said, Look, this is as much about whether you like it, you know. Now, where that goes, I don’t know, and I’m okay with that. Like, it’s tough with, with the internet, you know, and social media, because people want to put this sort of definitiveness on everything. And this finality like, Oh, that’s it. He’s with WWE. That’s it game over, you know. And so now, you know, people say are you not wrestling anymore? Have you retired? Are you not wrestling? I mean, even the boys are saying that, like, are you done wrestling? You know, and it’s like, slow down.”

On keeping his options open: “Yeah, well look and everything could change next week or the week after or anything like that. But I guess to sort of, to put a pin in this because obviously, there’s only so much we can discuss. And it’s not like I’m trying to be secretive or anything. It’s just not that interesting. It’s just like, yeah, they called me and said, Hey, how would you feel about coming in and, you know, seeing how things operate on the production level, and, you know, shadowing the producers. And I was like, That would be interesting, that would be fun to see how that works, even if nothing comes of it. Or even if, and again, I have to make this point. They also were very open with me about it and said, Look, if you don’t want to do it, like if you’re not cool with this, like, absolutely no hard feelings, you know, like, if you don’t, right now, the same for me or not, I’m not ready to do this yet. That’s totally cool, too. May as well say it, obviously. I would love the other thing. But until that day comes or doesn’t, you know, I’m gonna explore other opportunities. Because ultimately, that is absolutely something that I would want to do. In the end. I just, it’s, you know, the question it will be, I guess, whether or not I’m ready to do it now. You know, and we don’t know that yet.”

On losing to Cody Rhodes at All In 2018: “Most of the time you know what people want, like at All In. We all knew what they wanted, we never had a discussion about the finish. [There was never] Hey, what if I win, brother? We never had that discussion. There was never a definitive discussion of, would you mind doing the honors? I was like, Don’t talk to me, I know what the people want here. We had to give it to them in a way that they couldn’t predict and weren’t fully able to expect and predict. That’s your job, give the people what they want in the way that they aren’t expecting.”

On his proudest moment in TNA: “Breaking the glass ceiling and winning the world title. No Brit had ever done that before. The irony is that guys like Russo and Dutch would laugh at that now because I always used to say that I didn’t want to be known as a British guy. It doesn’t matter if I am British, who gives a sh*t? I don’t want to be the token British guy, I want to be the top guy. It doesn’t matter where I am from. Then I won the world title and there was this outpour of love from British people of like he’s the first British guy to win the world title. Suddenly you are like all patriotic again, but I think both things can be true. That was a part of it I wasn’t really thinking about.”