Nick Aldis on Bret Hart Being First Person To Text Him After SummerSlam Match Against Gunther Was Announced, Feeling “Nervous But Excited” For His Match Against Gunther, & His Belief His Upcoming Match Is Evidence of His Impact As A “Significant General Manager” in WWE

SmackDown General Manager Nick Aldis is currently scheduled to be competing in a singles match against Gunther at Night 1 of WWE SummerSlam on August 1 in Minneapolis, Minnesota. This will be Aldis’ first match in WWE and his first match since October of 2023.

MuscleManMalcolm held a recent interview with Aldis. One of the topics discussed included Aldis revealing that WWE Hall of Famer Bret “The Hitman” Hart was the first person to message him after his match with Gunther was made official.

“To now be so fortunate to be friends with Bret, who really is my hero. Bret was the first guy who texted me when the match got made official for SummerSlam by the way. I was in New York City, and obviously we had our little dust-up at Fanatics and Hunter made the match there… obviously my phone was lighting up but, the first text message is from Bret Hart, and I thought, that’s a pretty significant thing for the nine-year-old me. That’s something that I wouldn’t have expected.”

Aldis also gave his thoughts about him feeling nervous but excited going into his match against Gunther at SummerSlam.

“I’m feeling nervous but excited. I’m feeling good. I’ve been just really immersing myself in crazy conditioning workouts… to try to get my conditioning where it needs to be, as best you can in a very short amount of time, for what is obviously a very tall order to be in the ring at SummerSlam with one of the real elite-level guys in our industry. I feel good, I feel nervous, in a good way. I feel excited, I feel validated. But I also understand that the work for me is to deliver at SummerSlam and that’s pretty much all I’m focused on.”

Aldis also gave his thoughts about if he is interested in having more matches and how he is fully locked in on his upcoming match at SummerSlam. Aldis also gave his thoughts about how he was a bit freaked out because everyone backstage was so calm about him making his in-ring return and WWE producer Michael Hayes was the only person who talked to him about it.

“I am 100 percent fully focused on SummerSlam. I came into this with no expectations. I come out of it with no expectations. The demands are only on myself. I’m demanding of myself to put on a performance worthy of what I believe to be my pedigree and my level. After that, it’s out of my hands, right? It’s in God’s hands and it’s also about any number of different factors. It’s about the audience, it’s about our fans, it’s about the circumstances with what’s available. I didn’t know this was happening. I didn’t expect this to happen. So, I’m certainly not going to, then, you know, oh! Now I can do this and this and now it will lead to this… Early on, I had a couple of little freakout moments, where I was a bit sort of like, ‘Why is everyone so calm about this?’ Taking a guy who’s never wrestled here and you put him in a match at SummerSlam with a top guy. No one’s asking me, do you think you can do it? Michael Hayes was the only one who was like, ‘How you feeling?’ And Michael was the only one who said to me, ‘You just make sure you do whatever you need to do to be ready,’ and I knew what that meant. He’s like, don’t be afraid to say you need help or you want this or you want that… After a while, I suppose I just had to make peace with the idea that I guess they have faith in me. It’s difficult because obviously, being in the position I was in, you obviously do find yourself asking yourself a lot of internal questions like, did they think I was good enough? Why did they land on this for me? What is it about me that made them think that this is the right thing for me to do and all that? And then this comes along, and so then you go, well, doesn’t matter anymore, does it? Because now all that matters is I have to deliver at SummerSlam.”

In a separate recent interview with The Sportster, Aldis also gave his thoughts about how his upcoming match against Gunther is evidence of his impact as a “significant General Manager” in WWE.

“I felt like there was a new spin on that character that was available. Overall? Well, let’s just put it like this without sounding too cocky. I must have done something right given the fact that the GM is having a match at SummerSlam. So I guess it means I must have made somewhat of an impact and been somewhat of a significant General Manager.”

Aldis also gave his thoughts about his moment at the July 18th WWE Saturday Night’s Main Event show at Madison Square Garden where he cost Gunther the opportunity to be added to the Undisputed WWE Championship match at SummerSlam.

“If that turns out to be the last thing I ever did as GM, it was a good one to have a moment like that at Madison Square Garden.”

Transcript h/t: Fightful.com 1 & 2