– Austin Aries has addressed reports that he’s taking time off from WWE. The reports were based on an interview he had done earlier this week, but Aries told Josh Barnett that the quote was taken out of context.

“If you look at the full quote and what I said was, Everyone is dealing with various stuff,” Aries said. “I don’t think there is anyone in the locker room is 100%. We’re all nicked and banged up to various degrees. Like anything else, you pick and choose the times you need address when it needs to be addressed and some times are better than others. I figure no matter what interview I do, the real good ‘journalists’ are going to find the completely irrelevant quotes that will drum up some controversy and stick it on their page to get some clicks and completely miss the real context of what the interview is about. That’s what we do nowadays and call it ‘journalism.’”

Aries was promoting his book Food Fight: My Plant Powered Journey from the Bingo Halls to the Big Time, which began shipping on Friday.