Nick Aldis on Reasons for Leaving NWA & Much of NWA Product Doesn’t Pass “Harley Race” Test

A recent episode of the NotSam Wrestling podcast had Nick Aldis as the guest. One of the topics discussed included Aldis’ reasons on why he has decided to leave the National Wrestling Alliance.

“I was planning to let my fans know that I had given my notice, but not in a nefarious way and certainly not in a negative way. I was just gonna let people know, ‘Hey, I’ve decided to move on. I’ve given my notice so that my final shows with the NWA, people would know that this is it. I thought, ‘hey, this is a good opportunity to give something exclusive to my subscribers, and then a couple days from now, I’ll then let everyone else know.’ Then those people will go, hey, this was worth it, hopefully. The whole thing about paywall content, it’s gotta be stuff that people feel is worth the money. It was my first time. I thought I had done everything right. I had clicked the little button that said ‘Subscribers only,’ but I guess, maybe because it’s real… I don’t know. I still don’t know. This is exactly how it happened. I was on the terrace on the condo. I decide screw it, let’s do that. Just very candid. That’s how I built my fanbase is authenticity. Then, when that was done, we had dinner reservations, and I was like oh, I got enough time to go get a little 30-minute cardio in at the fitness center. I go do 30 minutes of cardio, and by the time I come back, I see people going like, ‘Man, that was really great what you said.’ I’m going, wait a minute. I don’t think he’s a subscriber. That’s my friend. I don’t think my friends are paying to see my (content) [laughs]. I went, ‘Ugh, damn it.’ I deleted it. I probably shouldn’t have even bothered. I should have just left it, but whatever. But look, I gave my notice. I said I gave my notice, and I sort of alluded to why. It certainly wasn’t intended to be this sort of burial of the NWA or anything like that. Why would I do that? That would bury myself. The thing that I’ve been most heavily associated with for the last five years, and then I would turn around and go, ‘No, it sucks.’ No.”

Aldis also gave his thoughts on why he believes that much of NWA’s current product does not pass the “Harley Race” test.

“Look, I can’t get around it. I’m not saying all of it, but there was enough of it that, for me, didn’t pass the Harley Race test. I know that people will hear that and be like, ‘Harley Race? What the hell?’ What you have to understand, Harley Race wanted nothing to do with the NWA because of what it had been prior. It had some pretty dark days. Then he agreed, not only to be back associated with it. [He] asked me to come to Missouri to defend the title, agreed to appear on-camera, talking to me about being NWA Champion, and that ended up being the last interview he ever gave on-camera before he passed away. That means a lot to me. It was because of how we had presented pro wrestling consistently for three years at that point or whatever it was. We had consistently presented pro wrestling in a serious and dignified way. I know people will hear dignified and pro wrestling in the same sentence and say it’s an oxymoron, you know what I’m saying. I just found myself, again, this isn’t me trying to do scorched earth. I’m just saying this is what factored into my decision to give my notice. I started looking at stuff like Gaagz the Gymp, a social distancing match where the two wrestlers can’t touch each other. [fake laugh] On and on it went with different wacky, silly comedy nonsensical stuff, and I said, ‘How would I have justified this to Harley Race, if Harley Race had been here today?’ Imagine if I’d have been stood there with Harley Race, and what would Harley Race say watching this, or Dory Funk? Or Ric Flair?

I thought, if I was stood here with those guys right now, I’d be kind of embarrassed. Because they would look at me and go, ‘This is you? This is your company?’ I’d have to go, ‘No.’ I didn’t want to be in a position where I’m like, ‘Oh, that’s not me.’ Because if I’m in, I’m in. When we first talked, I was doing the Ten Pounds of Gold Series. I got paid zero for those. I know that [Corgan] spent a lot time talking about, ‘I gave him this money.’ Well, we exchanged money for services. I gave you pro wrestling services in exchange for money. You didn’t give me money. Also, for the first year that we were doing business together, my money came from third-party independent promoters, it didn’t come from you at all. So I made all that content. I wasn’t getting paid for that. I was benefiting from it. I’m not upset about it, but I just think it provides a bit of context. I was very invested in building this thing.”

On the topic of if he regrets publicly saying that he dislikes the NWA product, Aldis stated:

“I’m sure that’s the trigger. Yes [I regret it]. No, [I didn’t do it to trigger him]. The truth is, I understood that a large portion of the NWA core audience evolved from being my core audience. The NWA, at first, it was me and Tim Storm. The success of that approach and the effort I put in, it’s not easy to wear a suit and carry yourself and present yourself in a certain way when you know you’re about to work a rec center in front of 100 people. That takes a different level of courage, ‘I’m the man.’ You don’t think there were times when I didn’t feel like a complete buffoon. This is 100 million miles away from WrestleMania. It starts [in your heart]. If you believe, they believe it. My career wasn’t doing shit. I had to bootstrap that whole thing. I had a run in TNA, but by the time I left TNA, they had a stink. You would think, coming off a show that was doing 2 million viewers on SpikeTV on primetime, ‘I’ve got to get an opportunity somewhere.’ I was left holding the bag. I had to start from scratch. If I’m going to do it and commit, then I’m going to commit. When I see guys stroll into NWA Powerrr, march up to catering, stuff their faces, make another box to go, and me and Trevor aren’t getting any food, do I start to get a chip on my shoulder? Yeah. ‘You guys have no clue what it took to get to this point.’ By the same token, I know what it’s like to resonate with the audience and to pound the pavement. When people come up to me and say, ‘you brought back wrestling that I love. I used to watch this with my grandpa and it brings back these memories of my grandpa and makes me so happy. He would love this and I wish he was around to see this.’ That means something to me. When I saw it get betrayed, I felt betrayed too. The irony is, I’m sure he feels betrayed too. He believes in the product he’s putting out now, and I don’t. I’m sure, for him, it’s a difficult pill to swallow. That’s the business part of it. This isn’t good for my business anymore, so I’m going to move on and see if I can do business some other way.”

Aldis also gave his thoughts on NWA owner Billy Corgan’s recent comments about how he would have let Aldis out of his contract with the company if he had a better offer elsewhere.

“Yeah, I signed a one-year contract. Truthfully, they made me a nice offer with very favorable terms, one of which being that when it was time for the deal to come to an end, after the one year, if I wanted to exit the deal, which would continue on a month-go-month basis if not, I had to give 60 days notice. If they wanted to end the agreement, they would have to give me 90 days notice, so it was an advantage for me. They put that in, not me. I was like, great, that’s nice, I appreciate that. It was very amicable. As far as deals go in pro wrestling, obviously money-wise, it’s not anything compared to WWE or AEW, but in terms of structure, it was one of the fairest agreements, probably the fairest agreement that I’d ever signed in wrestling. One year, it had bonuses factored in for the production stuff because I started doing Ten Pounds of Gold. I took on that load after (Dave) Lagana left. So I’d been doing all that the year prior for no extra money. I made the Ten Pounds of Gold pieces for me and Cardona and a few other packages and stuff. Again, when that came up, I just kind of said, ‘hey, I’m wearing a lot of hats here, and I’m not getting any extra for it.’ All that I’m really doing is running the risk of putting heat myself. When you start wearing those hats, suddenly it’s like you’re office. I got put into a position once, for example, when Billy’s relationship with Thunder Rosa kind of went sour, he asked me to call her and intervene and stuff like that. I kind of went, ‘dude, this is not my job. You have to understand the position you’re putting me in.’ It was very uncomfortable, and it was little things like that just started to show the cracks where I was like you have to know what position that puts me in, but you’re basically putting me in it because you’d rather it be me than you …

Yes, that was the earliest time that I would have been able to do that. It’s not a release situation. It was a situation where, okay, we agreed for one year, but whenever I wish to end the agreement, I have to give 60 days notice. The earliest possible time that I contractually could do that was November 2. So that’s the day I did it. I was just trying to be professional about it. I typed up a letter and sent it, and copied my agent on it. As far as I was concerned, that was that. When I decided to let my fans know, it was not in a pipe bomb sort of situation. It was just, ‘Hey, here’s what’s coming up next. I don’t know where I’m gonna be next but I’m excited for the future.’ I’m not sure why I would need to get out of my contract early. Considering how patient I’ve been up to this point, I can hold on a few weeks. I don’t know what to say to that. It just speaks to his level of understanding.”

On the topic of when he felt that NWA’s vision was taking a turn for the worst, Aldis stated:

“Year and change. So [NWA] 73, the first St. Louis show was, for me, was kind of like, once that business was transacted, it was never the same. Here’s the thing, the first thing that anyone’s gonna say to that and the first thing I’m sure Billy would say, ‘Oh, well, because he wasn’t champion anymore.’ The reality is that, prior to that, I had been sort of steering the ship because the world title angle was obviously, like in any promotion, the world title angle should be the one that really anchors the promotion. I had worked very hard for the last three years, well, even before that, because even when Cody (Rhodes) and I kind of traded the belt back and forth, I was still in the thick of it. I had worked very hard to make sure that every time I was involved in a world title angle that it was meaningful, it meant something. I felt, that was always the driving force. That was always sort of pulling the wagon. Obviously, when I wasn’t in that picture anymore, voluntarily, I would like to add. I was the one who said, ‘I think it might be time for a switch here.’ Here’s an opportunity, here’s all these things that are presenting themselves. St. Louis, Trevor, Harley Race, Wrestling at The Chase. All these opportunities presented themselves, and I went, there’s a moment there. There’s a piece of business to be done there. It was kind of my baby, and I hate getting into these pissing contests of ‘This is my idea’ but that whole angle was kind of my baby. I [was] kind of soup-to-nuts [with] that whole thing. I also knew enough to know that it’s very important, it’s not just about losing the title. It’s what you do after.

So I had a whole thing in place. ‘Here’s what I can do next.’ I can go into this program with Thom [Latimer]. Thom can turn on me because I’m not his meal ticket anymore. I lost the belt, now I’m no use to him. I’ll turn babyface because I knew that was coming too. I could tell at that point, there was just so much goodwill and sentiment. People knew what I had done. It was getting hard for them to continue to hate me because they kind of know he’s been, he QB’ed this whole thing. I was getting a lot of that. So I went, I think the time is right, I’ll be a sympathetic character. I lost in the middle in of the ring, I sort of passed the torch. I did business. I came back, the first thing the old-timers, Ricky Morton, Austin Idol, Ric Flair, the first thing they all said, they shook my hand and [said] ‘Thank you for doing business.’ That’s the way. I believe in the way. There are fundamental rules and principles of our industry, and I stuck to them. I always stick to them. I think that if you look at the guys who sort of go out of their way to kind of endorse me, it’s like Bret Hart, Harley, Austin Idol, Ricky Morton, Ric, Dory Funk, because they know that I respect the business, I love the business, and I try to do it the right way.

It’s irrelevant what I think about it. It’s irrelevant whether I liked it or not. The audience didn’t like it. So fast-forward, we get to the new year, and they can’t sell tickets. They can’t sell any tickets. So it comes back to me like, ‘What should we do? You’re the only person I trust?’ I get put in this really awkward position because I’m like, well now you’re forcing me to sort of advocate for myself, which I knew could be twisted and manipulated against me at any point. “Without saying, ‘It should be me.’ [laughs] ‘Hey, well, you know what you should do, brother. Put the old strap-ski back on me’, which I never said, by the way. I was presented with the question, ‘What’s different now? Why is it not working now compared to how it was?’ I sort of went, again, you’re forcing me to give you an answer that paints me in this awful light, but I’m going, the difference is, you had a world title angle that people were interested in, and now you don’t. You know what I mean? I don’t know how else to tell you that. That’s what led to [Matt] Cardona and then me and Cardona, and we got that going. Again, we got it going and we decided, hey, let’s stretch this out. Let’s get this going. Matt got hurt, and that was kind of, for me, when it all fell apart again. Then somewhere in there, I get the screw where suddenly it’s turned it, ‘Well you were advocating to get the belt back.’ I kind of went, woah, hold on. I made a point to say, when we had the initial conversations to include Pat (Kenney) and make sure that it was never a one-on-one so that that couldn’t happen. I kind of went, ‘this is exactly what I was afraid of, so you know what, I’m bowing out. You do what you want.’

This was something that he said to Mickie. He and Mickie had a private conversation that he didn’t realize that I was privy to. He goes, ‘Well, your husband is pressuring me to put the belt back on him.’ For me, that day I went, this isn’t a work.”

Aldis also gave his thoughts about Corgan’s recent comments on if his recent actions were some sort of an elaborate work or angle he was doing on his own.

“He worked himself into a shoot. I’m trying to be nice here and say what’s obvious for anyone who is paying attention. His lack of experience and naivety, that first time when it was an angle, when people reached out to me, I said, ‘Yes, but…I’m concerned he’s working himself into a shoot.’ It does when you’re inexperienced and you let this get to you personally. I’ve made mistakes in the past and had failed relationships in the past with people because I let it get personal when I shouldn’t have. That’s experience, maturity, and skin thickening. I’ve been in the business since I was 17, I have thick skin at this point. People have said the worst shit about me at some point or another, and I’m a double target because I’m married in the business too. I’m pretty conditioned, and I could see it coming. The whole thing that is so silly is, number one, I hate the fact that it paints me in this light of complaining or having problems backstage. Anyone who has been involved in the NWA knows that nobody put more sweat equity into that brand than me. There comes a time where you have to go, ‘you have to move on.’ If this were the territories, it would be, ‘let’s finish up.”

Transcript h/t: Fightful.com