AJ Styles (@ajstylesp1) is a retired professional wrestler and WWE Hall of Famer. He sits down with Chris Van Vliet in Nashville, TN to discuss his retirement match with Gunther at the Royal Rumble, why he didn’t wait until WrestleMania, if there were ever plans for a retirement tour, his phenomenal match with John Cena in Australia, being inducted into the Hall of Fame, his son Avery Styles following in his footsteps, if he really is done with wrestling, and more!

So, how’s retirement treating you?

“Oh, wow. It’s funny, because I think I’m gone a little bit more than I was when I was actually working. I don’t know how that works, but to get the chance to go down to the Performance Center and work with those men and women down there, it’s pretty awesome. It scratches that itch, and being involved with Evolve is awesome. I produced a couple of matches, which I didn’t think I’d enjoy, but I love it. I’ve heard this is how it all starts, you start producing, the next thing you know, you get heavily involved with certain kind of things, but it’s really cool to be working with the young talent and the light bulb going off. I’m trying to give my moves away, like, ‘Hey, try this, try this, try this, try this, I’m not gonna use it anymore.’ I’m having fun.” 

How long had you been thinking about retiring?

“Well, I was gonna retire before the Royal Rumble at WrestleMania [41], but I just come back from my foot injury, and it just didn’t seem right. I was feeling kind of good, actually. Once I got my foot back in order, I was like, man. I’m sure money was a thing, because I didn’t ask for more money, I just wanted to extend it. But then again, they did right by me, paying me well, and so I know that was an issue, but then we finally got that in order, and I was like, all right, here we go. I’m not saying I didn’t get weird near the end of knowing I was going to retire or leave WWE; I got weird, dude.”

In what way?

“I just was questioning everything. A normal, sane AJ Styles would not question this; it would just be what it is. Even the moment where I found out Gunther was in the Royal Rumble, and I think that it already been explained that he was in the Royal Rumble, and that I got this match, but I was like, what the freak? I think I made Triple H feel awful about, oh man, I didn’t think about that. When reality is, nobody thought about that; nobody did, nobody cared, even when Gunther came out at the Royal Rumble and got beat. In fact, it should have made more sense that he got beat because he was in the ring with AJ Styles. He got exhausted in that match, of course he’s not going to win the Royal Rumble. So I just got weird, man. So, my apologies to everyone who I acted that way, and I was just in a weird state of mind.” 

When you say you’re questioning things, are you questioning whether it was the right decision to retire?

“Well, there was that going on. I mean, is this it? This is what I do. There were rumors of things I never really talked to anybody from anywhere else. It just was there. It’s difficult, because this is all I’ve ever known, as far as I’ve invested my life into this career, and I think the only way you get to this point where you’ve reached the heights is you have to be obsessed with it. So I dedicated nothing else, as far as work goes, but to pro wrestling, so I didn’t know anything. I can’t fix anything, I’m the worst. In fact, I end up breaking stuff. So it’s just when that’s all you know, and you don’t know what else to do, and what is life after? It’s very confusing and emotional. It’s a lot of different things that I really can’t put my finger on, but I know you get weird.”

So, when we sat down a little over a year ago, you said you would not wrestle into your 50s, so you were already starting to think about retirement. How did you know it was time to end there? Because you don’t look like you slowed down at all. 

“Well, it’s the thought of me not being able to be AJ Styles, to throw that 450 in against Gunther one last time to say I can still do this, I just don’t have to anymore, was me saying all right, I am older, but I can still go, but that’s not the reason to stay in it. At some point, you will embarrass yourself if you stay in it long enough. You will embarrass yourself, because people will say, ‘Wow, that’s not the AJ Styles I used to know. Man, that’s really bad.’ I preface this by saying, a lot of people [said], ‘Well, he slowed down. He wasn’t doing what he was doing in TNA…’ Wrong. I just actually learned psychology, you know. And I’m not saying that was a doofus in TNA, but when psychology comes into play, matches are a lot better with doing less. So it’s just, man, I’m thankful for the career I’ve had, and at that point, at 48 years old, I made the right decision.”

Do you miss it?

“I don’t miss falling down, I don’t miss getting hurt, I don’t miss any of that, but you’re always going to miss that part of the excitement that you’re about to go to the ring and have a great match. You’re going to miss that, that’s just the high you don’t get from anything else. But again, I get to go down the Performance Center and scratch that itch and just throw myself into helping these performers down at the PC get better.”

I think when you said that you were going to have your final match in 2026, nobody expected it to be in January of 2026. Why not push it to WrestleMania? Why not have your last match at WrestleMania this year?

“That wasn’t my pay-per-view or PLE. That’s not where I started. For me to be able to debut and then end it at the Royal Rumble, and I don’t care that it was in Saudi Arabia, it’s still the Royal Rumble. That meant something to me. I know there’s people who have WrestleMania as their big PLE, but mine was the Royal Rumble.”

How did you get to Gunther being your final opponent?

“That wasn’t up to me, it was up to the story. He had retired Goldberg, he had retired John Cena. Why not retire AJ Styles?”

How much thought did you put into what that finish would look like? Because a month earlier, John Cena went out the same way, but John Cena tapped. You get the sleeper hold put on you, you pass out.

“Yeah, but I think the whole thing with our match was that I made him tap out, but you weren’t gonna make me tap out, kind of deal, and I didn’t. Went out on my shield and almost had the ropes. But there was the moment there that AJ Styles couldn’t hold out any longer, his body had given up on him, his air supply was gone. Passes out.”

When you came through the curtain after the match, talk us through it:

“It got emotional, because when I went back in Gorilla, it seemed like most of our roster was there waiting on me. Abyss pulls me in like a big brother, the way he pulled me in, and everybody’s just kind of there hugging me, and stuff like that. It was shortly after that when I was done hugging everybody, freaking really hit me. I knew it was about to happen, so I had to get away from everybody, and I tried. They had a locker room away from everybody else that I’d found that they were storing luggage in, so I was like, I’ll just change it here. It’s quiet, it’s cold, it’s nice. So I was changing there all by myself with the luggage. I kind of got back there. I ran in there, and I thought I closed the door behind me, but apparently it didn’t. It just bounced right wide open. I had to stand there for a second and just gather my thoughts and shed a couple tears, because AJ Styles is no longer wrestling again. That was tough, but it was okay. I just needed Shane Helms being the first one to come in there, and he knew what was up. I think he’s been through that somewhat before, kind of gave me a hug. I just needed to get that out, and I needed that hug from Shane, and that was okay. It was emotional. I don’t know how to explain it any more than that.”

You’ve left such a legacy in pro wrestling; sure, you might not still be doing it, but people will never forget who you are and what you did. 

“Well, we’ll see. I feel like we’re already kind of heading that direction, and that’s okay, because they need to move on to the next stars. They need to build these other stars to be bigger and bigger and better. So I’m okay with that. I’ve dealt with it. I’m okay with it.”

Do you think about the legacy that you’ve left in this industry 27 years in, all of the things you’ve done? What do you think that legacy is? 

“I don’t know. Is that up to me? Or is that up to the fans? Does it bother me? Maybe there isn’t one. I think about this all the time: Was I even a WWE guy? Yes, I was there, and I participated in WWE. I did all these great things in 10 years, which is amazing, but you never really see AJ Styles on some of the greatest WWE stars and stuff like that, and I get it. I was in TNA, I was in New Japan. I’m not necessarily a WWE guy.”

Who do you think’s the greatest feud you had in WWE?

“The greatest feud? I think the one that got the most eyes was me and John Cena. But the match that I had with Roman was really freaking good. At no point in that match did they go, you can’t wrestle to Roman, because he was freaking bringing it. He was all about, he was in it. I’m not saying it’s me, we had the opportunity to gel really well together, and he was tearing it up. It was awesome. So, there’s a couple guys that I had great matches with. I’m kind of sad that I never get to run that back a little bit with Roman, Dean Ambrose and Jericho and the rest, all these guys who were high-level names in WWE. So there’s a couple feuds out there that are pretty high on my list, you know. Then we, I mean, if we’re not talking about WWE, then we can talk about Tanahashi and Okada. I wish I had more matches with Shinsuke, but then we had Abyss, Christopher Daniels, Samoa Joe, Kurt Angle.”

I think the general consensus is the match that you had with John Cena was his best match during his retirement tour. So what went into planning that match? What was the idea behind that match?

“Well, it was the opportunity to throw back to every guy that we ever wrestled that meant a lot to us, and that’s all it was. I mean, we didn’t have much of a story, so we had to tell one in the ring. I’m pretty sure I wasn’t supposed to wrestle him. I don’t care what anybody says. I don’t know who called it, but I know that I wasn’t in the picture. Something else needed to happen. I don’t know what that was, someone’s gonna have to tell that story, because I don’t know. I’m just positive that I wasn’t the guy that was supposed to wrestle him.”

Was there a move that you did during that match, or he did that you were like, I don’t know if I can do that? 

“So, Fade to Black, shout out to Frankie Kazarian. Yeah, and I’ve never done that move before, and I told John, I said, ‘I don’t know if I can do it. He’s like, ‘Yeah, you can. I’m just gonna tuck my face into your butt hole, and it’ll be fine.’ We watch it back, and I was like, ‘Freak, that’s great.’ Even I think Triple H said something like, ‘I don’t know, man. So it turned out to look really good, as far as I know, from what I saw. There was a point in there where they were chanting ‘619, 619’ because they knew what we were doing at this point. So the ref walks over, and he goes ‘619.’ Me to John? ‘No, John’s going to 619 you?’ John’s going to 619 me?! All right. So I sell over there, he gives me the drop toe hold. I heard him go, ‘Stop me before I get to you.’ I didn’t say anything. He goes, ‘Hey, stop me as I go for this.’ I didn’t say anything. ‘Stop me before I get to this!’ He yelled. I go, okay. He goes, and I clothesline him. I joke around, maybe if John would have tried the 619, it may have turned into the 61 I’m not sure. So that was just kind of funny to me at that time, but for people to understand what we were doing in that match, once they got the gist of it, I thought it was really cool, and to end it with the tombstone that nobody does was pretty freaking cool, right up to his finisher. I was like, wow, that was fun.” 

Was there ever talk earlier on in the year of you having a match with John Cena on his farewell tour?

“Nothing, never a talk of me having a match with John. Listen, I just assume I’m not that guy. I’m not that guy. Sometimes I feel like even though I’ve been in WWE for 10 years, I’m not a WWE guy. So, and that was just one of those times.”

Did you think about having a retirement tour?

“No, not at all. I didn’t need one. It was perfectly fine the way I was doing it. In fact, not a lot of people do. So I saw Cody and John calling their match at WrestleMania, I believe it was the one that I was supposed to retire at, and I kind of went up to him and I go, ‘Hey, this is to us in our last WrestleManias.’ He’s like, huh? I was like, yeah. So it was kind of cool to be there for his last run, and I credit John for that. It wasn’t about the tour; it was about making money for WWE and him getting his flowers at the same time.”

So how did this tag team run with Dragon Lee come together? AJ Lee, as people lovingly called it:

“You know, they just kind of told me, ‘Hey, we’re thinking about putting you with Dragon Lee.’ Great, that’s great. And so it just kind of one of those things where we kind of worked well together and had fun and made a great tag team out of it.”

What’s the story behind coming up with the Phenomenal Forearm?

“As most, I was a big fan of Masawa and Muta. There’s little things that I took from them that people probably had no idea, but instead of just doing a simple knee drop, I always wonder why with Great Muta, his elbow looked so amazingly awesome, it was so cool. What made it look cool? It’s just an elbow, but it’s the way he did it. So, I was like, okay, so when I drop this knee, I’ll just kind of move my legs in the air and make it look different. It was the same thing with a forearm. If Masawa can do it off the second rope, make his forearms a big deal, then I can surely springboard this bad boy and make it look pretty good, and that’s how I got it.” 

With you doing some stuff at the WWE Performance Center. It feels like maybe your son will have a tryout at some point soon.

“I hope that he does at some point, but he’s not ready yet. I don’t. My job is to make him ready and teach him the little things that we want to see as coaches. There’s been plenty of guys that even myself have went for tryouts, and they say, ‘Hey, we don’t care about the high-flying moves, we just want to see what you can do.’ I had no idea what they were talking about, and now, being that guy, I get it. It’s the little things in between that we want to see that if you do it well, and that’s the hardest thing to learn, is the in between.”

So, after you had your final match against Gunther, you got to say goodbye in your hometown; you got to say goodbye in Atlanta. What that speech mean for you?

“Me and my buddy Chad, I’m just gonna say his name, because I love him. We’re going over, and he goes, ‘This sounds like a Hall of Fame speech.’ I go, ‘Yeah, kind of does.’ He goes, ‘Yeah, why don’t we just do something different?’ I don’t know if he knew at that time, or maybe he did that The Undertaker was coming out. So it was one of those I just kind of spoke from the heart rather than from a piece of paper that somebody wrote for me, and I think that people saw that they could see it. Then of course The Undertaker comes out.” 

What were you thinking when you heard that gong? 

“Well, they said Undertaker was coming out. I assumed we’re gonna shake hands and be like, ‘Hey, congratulations on your retirement.’ Thank you, got it. That’s what I thought was happening. Then he comes in there talking about, I don’t even know what he was talking about; I just know it sounded like we were going to wrestle again. I know we’re not wrestling, so what are you talking about? I don’t remember the exact words, but there was a moment where I go oh! I looked at my wife, and then we kind of got the idea of the Hall of Fame, and being inducted, which was really cool, and a total surprise, because I had no idea.”

Your Hall of Fame speech, did they give you a length of time to work within?

“Never said anything to me, and you know what, it happened exactly the way it was supposed to. Stephanie’s was amazing, of course, she was a big part of WWE, and so her speech should have been exactly the way it was. It was really, really good. I think she spent a lot of time on that one, making it perfect. It was so good, and so there was no competing with that, but then me going out there, being last, big deal to me, but also taking into consideration what everybody had done that day. I just tried to make it heartfelt.”

You got a beautiful send-off from John Cena before the last match that you had. He wrote out that custom intro for you. At what point did you realize what was happening?

“Oh, I’m stretching. I had no idea what was going on. I knew none of this, and I’m stretching, and I can’t [remember] the words. But [I heard] TNA, I go, wait a minute, are they talking about me? Then I took a step back, and they said more, and I look at John, and then they said, ‘The ace of Bullet Club…’ Whoa, we weren’t supposed to say that! Really cool moment, really cool moment. He took the time to make me feel like I was a star, not just AJ Styles, but there’s AJ and John Cena in the ring at the same time, and I’m just as big a star as he is. That kind of makes your heart melt when you think about it, like this guy thought so much of me that he want to make sure it was special to me too.” 

Well, I think when TNA and WWE started working together, people started seeing the possibility here. Maybe we’ll see AJ Styles in TNA one more time. How did that appearance in TNA come together?

“Well, I think that TNA just asked, he doesn’t have to wrestle, we just wanted to come out there and have a moment with Leon Slater, I think the youngest X Division champion in TNA.”

Was there ever a possibility of having a match in TNA?

“I don’t think there was ever a possibility of me having a match in TNA, and I think I know why. Because once I did that appearance with Leon where Chelsea Green came up to me and said, ‘Oh, I would love to go back there and have a match.’ I go, ‘Oh, that’s why I want to. I’ll never have a match over there, because once you open that door, it’s open now, and people are going to want to do it. ‘So I knew after talking to Chelsea, and she wasn’t saying anything bad. She’s just saying the idea of being able to wrestle there would be great again. I knew that it never happened.”

When you wore the throwback TNA gear against John Cena, was that your actual gear from 20 years ago?

“No, it was not my actual gear, and we had to get new gear made. I don’t know where that gear is. But there was a picture of John and I on PWI, the magazine, and it was me in that gear, and John, of course, in his shorts, and I thought I’m gonna do a throwback, see how many people remember that or understand it.”

We talked about The Undertaker earlier. I’m so curious, what the original idea was for the match at WrestleMania 36 because you were going to have an actual match before the world shut down, and you had to make this a cinematic match. What was that match going to look like?

“It’s hard to know. I do remember asking Taker, I was like, ‘Hey, can you still do the flip over to your feet onto the outside?’ He goes, ‘AJ…’ I go, oh man, I’m just making sure. I get it now that you don’t think I can do it kind of thing. But I don’t know, we didn’t get a chance to really talk it over, because by the time it was on its way, when it was happening, the world was shutting down completely, so we didn’t know what kind of match we didn’t talk about it. I was trying to think of spots in my head that we could do, but man, with everything that’s going on, it’s hard to think of anything else.”

So then it’s pitched to you if we’re going to do this cinematic style match.

“Yeah, about two days before we had it. I think it was a week, matter of fact, because I think it was presented as a Boneyard match. I was like, ‘What the frick is a Boneyard match?’ Could have said graveyard match, but they wanted to say Boneyard match, and then I had no idea where it was going, and then we go over to the place where the cinematic match is going to happen. It looked like nothing. It was basically nothing. Then I get brought back the day of the shoot. I was like, oh my gosh, this looks amazing. This looks unbelievably amazing. This is awesome. And so I started getting excited about that, because you think about cinematic matches normally don’t do well, they’re not the best thing ever.”

Are you done-done? We all know how wrestling retirements work.

“That’s right, but I have said this before, and I’ll say it again. Usually we’re granted one comeback for one match. I’m not saying it’s gonna happen. I’m just saying usually it’s granted. Never say never.”

What is AJ Styles grateful for?

“God, a loving family and I had an amazing career.”

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