Exclusive: Nick Aldis discusses NWA, All In, Cody Rhodes, Toxicity in TNA & the 'Spot-Monkey vs Old-School' mentality

"The clown might be your favourite guy, but you don't want to see the clown do the trapeze, get shot out the cannon, or ride the elephant." - Nick Aldis

Nick Aldis and Tim Storm was a real heavyweight rivalry

Aldis continued to talk about the merits of touring the world with the NWA Title and defending it against much younger, lesser known and lesser experienced guys.

Aldis: "I took it as a badge of honour because I worked with a lot of guys who are much less experienced and it's a chance to give them a taste of 'if you trust me, I will get you over, if you trust me I will show you how you can get over, on your own, without me.'

Because it's all patience, I see so much wrestling now where guys are just like, throwing out an all you can eat buffet, and an all you can eat is great every now and then, but I just want a really nice steak, or I just want a really nice piece of fish or whatever."

Aldis: "But the culture is so heavily ingrained in 'Oh, I don't want anyone to criticise me so I'll just do every move I can think of, like five times, because I don't want anyone to think that I'm lazy and having a bad match.' And I'm like, doing a bunch of moves for no reason and killing yourself is not only dumb, but it's lazy too because you're just not making the effort to emote, or making the effort to tell a story, or making the effort make people feel something.

The thing I loved about ALL IN more than anything, was that it was 11,000-ish by the time it was said and done, and there was so little trolling on that show. There were little collections of people that tried to do it but they just got drowned out because people were like 'F*** that'. We're here to just, this is a moment and this is a real thing, and if I can be a positive part of wrestling that eliminates that thing, there's more than enough room for every taste here."

Aldis: "I loved that six-man tag at the end. What I really loved about it was that they had their time cut massively and still killed it. I love those guys. The reason I was on that show was because I have such a good relationship with the Bucks. There's this really weird assumption with the very die-hard fans of the Bucks that we couldn't possibly like each other and be friends and respect each other's work because we wrestle totally differently. Nick and Matt text me because they'd just watched the match because they hadn't seen it and they loved it Because I didn't do the kind of stuff that they do.

Matt Cross, one of my favourite opponents, we tore the house down in Tennessee, I love him, I think that he's so underappreciated, he's not underrated, that's a world I wish would disappear, but underappreciated, but he was like 'I can't wait for us to work together again' and he's excited about all the things I bring to the table that he doesn't and vice-versa. That's the business, not this kind of like, oh 'he must think I'm a spot-monkey because he's a heavyweight' or 'he must be a lazy cookie-cutter wrestler because he's a heavyweight and doesn't do flips', no!

We're telling stories. It doesn't matter. We're all here for everyone. When the circus comes to town, my analogy is this, the clown might be you favourite guy, but you don't want to see the clown do the trapeze, get shot out the cannon, or ride the elephant. Let someone else do that. When everyone plays their role and does it to the best of their ability, that's when you get these nights where people go 'what a show'. You know, it's a four hour show and four hours is too long normally. I've been to plenty of independent shows that are four hours and drag.

There professional wrestling shows out there that struggle to keep people interested for four hours...

Aldis: "Of course, because it's over engineered, it's not what people want. If it's four hours of stuff people want it doesn't matter. Ian Riccaboni at the start said 'it's a love letter to professional wrestling' and I loved that line, I thought that was brilliant, because that's really what it was. It was like 'hey, here's all the things we love about pro-wrestling.' We had an old-school traditional as they come NWA World Title match, followed by inflatable penises. I loved that!"

Joey Ryan brings something different to wrestling, and that's all right according to Nick Aldis

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You can catch NWA's 70th Anniversary Show on October 21st. It's available for live streaming on the FITE TV app!