8 Wrestlers Who DESTROYED Their Own Aura

"Aura".

"Narcissism".

What's the difference?

One means to possess a distinctive atmosphere that surrounds your person, the sort of atmosphere that might surround the Just Eat driver the morning after going twenty pints deep into your local boozer, while the other means to behave like a total prat. You know the kind. Loud. Obnoxious. Self-obsessed. Entitled. Paul Levesque when there's a television camera within his vicinity.

The written equivalent to the overdone 'corporate wants you to find the difference' meme from The Office, "aura" and "narcissism" sit on the same wavelength when psychoanalysing professional wrestling, and that's not necessarily a bad thing. Bret Hart, the wrestler's wrestler who could make The Boys bawl their eyes out at the sight of a crisp headlock takedown or with the amazement in his eyes at being taken off his feet by The 1-2-3 Kid as much as he could with his latest verbal takedown of Bill 'Not A Real Pro' Goldberg, famously did few jobs because he, as the hero of the piece, would be letting his fans down.

Narcissist? Absolutely - but Bret had earned the right. His aura was - is - untainted.

Unlike...

Austin Aries had it. He was a masterful composer of crowd suspense, always capitalising on the exact peak. He was as technically gifted in the art of applying a wrist lock as he was at crushing an opponent's organs with a 450 splash. He could eviscerate a rival on the microphone. He was the consummate wrestler, a fabulous worker irrespective of card placement, and was entrusted countless times with carrying Total Nonstop Action as its World Champion.

He had an aura as 'The Greatest Man Who Ever Lived', turning an otherwise fanciful moniker into his life story, and it got to his head.

Austin Aries Hulk Hogan'ed his career.

Dropping the TNA World Title to Johnny IMPACT at 2018's Bound For Glory, Aries was to lose via Starship Pain. He took the move like normal, complete with Johnny Whatever-His-Name-Is failing to corkscrew correctly, the referee counted the fall, and TNA had a new Ace on its hands. Finally, they were ending a pay-per-view with virtually nothing having gone amiss.

Then Austin Aries no-sold the finish, rose to his feet, flipped off TNA executive Don Callis and the audience, and stormed backstage.

LOLTNA?

LOLAUSTINARIES?

You decide.

Aries has never resurfaced in a major group.