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AJ Styles joins Chris Van Vliet at the DDPY Performance Center to discuss his legendary wrestling career, from turning down WWE in 2001 to his Royal Rumble debut, facing The Undertaker, John Cena's retirement tour, and his thoughts on retirement.
AJ Styles (@AJStylesOrg) is a professional wrestler currently signed to WWE. He sits down with Chris Van Vliet at the DDPY Performance Center in Atlanta, GA to discuss his legendary wrestling career, saying no to WWE in 2001, his legendary matches in TNA, why he hated working in the six-sided ring, his shocking Royal Rumble debut that the cameras missed, being The Undertaker's final opponent, the John Cena retirement tour, coming back from a near career-ending injury, when he thinks his in-ring career will end and more!
Quote I'm thinking about: "The only limit to our realization of tomorrow is our doubts of today." – Franklin D. Roosevelt
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"I knew I'd broke it. Because if you've broken it before, same foot, I was like I broke it again, and I'm pissed because now I know how long it's gonna take to get back. But again, little did I know it was much worse than a break."
"Because it's tendons, and my doctor, who is also my friend, was like do not look this up. I'm like I'm gonna look this up, and it's a career-ending injury. It happens in car wrecks and in professional football mostly, that's usually when it happens. And in football, of course, it's one of those things depending how severe it is. I was literally by the skin of my teeth able to [come back], they were like we can have surgery, we could do surgery on your foot and it will heal faster, but there could be complications as you get older. We don't know. We don't have to have surgery, let's try to do some therapy and get it back to where it is. Lucky for me I was able to get that therapy that I needed. Wasn't easy. It sucked. It's so crazy that you have to learn how to walk again to a certain extent, like how did I forget how to run? Little things like that. Because I was in a boot for six weeks, then I got six weeks in therapy, trying to figure this thing out. It’ll mess with you."
"I think it's one of those things where I'm so afraid of losing a step I'm doing everything I can to make sure it doesn't look like I've lost the step. But it took a toll on me. Because I go out there and I got two gears, all or nothing. Is that one gear? I don't know. But the fact that, yeah, I'm gonna go in there and I'm gonna give it my all. And then after the adrenaline wears off, I was like now it's sore a little bit. So you might catch me limping afterwards until I get used to this foot, stretching it out, all those tendons and stuff like that. But so far so good."
"I was like this is it. How am I going to recover again? I was like this might be it, and it sucked. Because like you said, I just came back. I was not hurt previously after I wrestled Cody in an “I Quit” match. I was not hurt during that time. So I'm sitting at home going okay, guys, okay. Then, hey, we're going to bring you back in Nashville. It's going to be great. Hurt myself, yeah I was p*ssed. I was mad. It may look like I was acting. I was not."
"I don't know. I feel like things happen pretty quickly. I mean, I got in the ring way before I was supposed to because I could do flips. A month into training I was already in the ring. That's way dumb. But the opportunity to learn from guys in the ring while you're wrestling is the best way to learn, and you better learn quick or nobody's going to want to wrestle you. So I was a sponge. Anytime someone told me something, they only had to tell me once. I was going to make sure that I remembered it, and it just kind of took off from there. Then we had a kind of developmental with WCW. First time I met Bob Sapp. He came in and became friends with him because he was doing his thing for WCW, and a lot of the other guys were there from WCW. So while they were watching their guys, they were able to see Air Paris and myself wrestling, having decent matches and doing some crazy stuff, and that's how we got our opportunity in WCW."
"I think that was it. That was the first big break. I was like wow, I get a chance to wrestle. Before that, I'd done extra stuff in WCW, but it was that chance to get in there and do it in the WCW ring in Baltimore, as a matter of fact, they gave us a trial in Baltimore, Air Paris and myself. Kind of busted out the shooting star to the floor in that match and other things that I'm sure I'd hate watching now. I started in 99 by 2001 I was in WCW, that's kind of quick. So I was at the right place, the right time, the right guys watching."
"I don’t think it was close at all. [Did they offer you a developmental deal?] So it was after WCW went under. I'd been under contract with WCW for five months. Johnny Ace calls me and said, ‘WWE is not picking up your contract’, and it freaking broke me. So I went and felt sorry for myself for about a good week. And then I was like, Alright, here we go. I'm trying to think how quickly it happened. I want to say that at that moment, I believe the NWA was having their 53rd anniversary, and I believe that was in Petersburg, Florida. Anyway, somewhere down in Florida, and some Japanese guys are going to be down there. I was like, I'm going to go down there, I'm going to wrestle, they're going to want me. I'm going to go to Japan to wrestle. That's how I'm going to make it back. I went down there. I wrestled Christopher Daniels for the first time, first time we met, first time we wrestled, and we were just connected, it was perfect. Our timing was the same and Christopher Daniels at that time was if you can't have a good match with him, you might as well quit. And we gelled so well. After that match, I really started traveling a lot. But I think during that time of doing indies and traveling a lot, I want to say that's when I was offered [a contract]. I did two dark matches for WWE and I was offered a contract for $500 a week to move to Cincinnati. I'm sure you've heard this story before, but I was like wait, so I have to move to Cincinnati and I'll make $500 a week? The same amount of money I was making at my bottled water job. And I'm gonna have to pay a lot more taxes on that $500 than I'm making now. I'm just thinking all this stuff. My wife can't move with me. She's in college about to finish, she's going to be a teacher. I was like this just doesn't sound right. And I believed in my heart that I was making the right decision and I even told Johnny as much as I'd love to come up there and train I just could not have my wife move in with their parents. I didn't think that was right. My job is to take care of her, not the other way around. I mean, I said no to a developmental that's never promised. HWA was the developmental back then. But you know what? Not only was it the best decision, because TNA would happen shortly after that in 2002, but HWA stopped being a developmental for them shortly after that as well. So I am guaranteed to not have made it through that cut. I wouldn't have made it, and I wasn't a big guy. What did I have to offer? There were no smaller guys that did anything in WWE that time. So I think it worked out pretty good based on what happened."
"The six-sided ring was different. It made us different. It sucked as a ring. I didn't realize how rough it was on my body until we got back to a squared ring and I was like oh my God. I forgot that these are much better to bump on the actual mat, because it's pillars under the six-sided ring, so you can move them in and out. Where in a squared ring, it's in the middle, that bounce, whatever you might get. You could take a bump right on that pillar, so you can imagine that hurts. There was a point in time where we were overseas, we were in England and it was a big show, Kurt and I were wrestling, and he was going to give me the belly to belly off the top. I remember taking that. I go I'm never taking that again. Don't ask me Kurt, it's killing me. And then of course we get the squared ring he’s like Hey, do you mind? I'm like, Oh, okay. He gave it to me in a squared ring and I was like, Oh. I landed and it was like nothing compared to what it was. I was like, Oh, I can take that. Right then and there, as pissed off as I was about going to a squared ring and abandoning the six-sided ring, it was at that moment I go, I'm okay with the squared ring now. But when you saw TNA and you saw a six-sided ring, you knew that was TNA. No one was doing that, maybe in Mexico, but we made it who we were. I think they lost their identity to a certain extent when they went to just a regular ring, just like everybody else."
"Because we've wrestled each other so much, not necessarily in triple threats, but we wrestled each other. We know each other very well. It could have been better. We went home way earlier than we were supposed to. We got mixed up in a spot. Joe did something. I was like, Wait, are we supposed to be going here? Nope, bam. We did it anyway. So we ad-libbed a good 10 minutes of that match. All that at the end is totally ad-libbed. Thank God we knew each other so well, because we could just communicate and get to where we needed to be. So it could have been really good. It was just good."
"That's a good question. I don't know. Maybe Matt Hardy, when him and I wrestled in TNA. Maybe it was Bubba. I can't remember. Yeah, I've lost it. It's a different kind of flip. It's not the same. Even when I watch other guys do it, I still don't do it like them. So yeah, they like to twist themselves over when they're coming off. I don't want a twist. I want a peak and then turn. So it's a little bit different. So there's a stalling involved to make it look beautiful and then go. But I've kind of lost it."
"No one ever really said anything to me, but I'll tell you, there was an instance. It was a big meeting. Dixie came out and basically said something to the fact of, if you don't want to be here, we'll let you go. At that moment, I looked over at Christian to see what he was going to do. This was 2008, 09, 10? I don't know, somewhere around there. But I was watching him because I looked up to Christian, he's amazing too. This guy is a ring general, for sure. I was watching him to see if he got up, because if he had gotten up, I would gotten up too. Hopefully he would have gotten me in the WWE or something."
"They hired Hulk Hogan and Eric Bischoff. I believe Eric was trying to do the right thing, to see where we're at as far as getting more eyes on us that we're growing. Unfortunately, it didn't work out the way it was supposed to. We lost a lot of money. I think I was kind of pissed at Hogan at the time, because I was like, why doesn’t he talk about TNA? Why is he not helping us? He's not advertising at all. He never talked about TNA. I was pissed, but I now realize I think he was embarrassed. It was embarrassing to him to talk about that, so he didn’t. I think Dixie was trying to do some things, and it was just they keep butting heads, so it just kind of fell apart, and when it fell apart, they lost a lot of money. When they lost a lot of money, they expected me to take a pay cut. My contract was up."
"I'm biased though, because I'm gonna put my guys on there, the guys that I had unbelievable [matches with]. Christopher Daniels, Samoa Joe. I think a lot of people would say Kurt because he was there for a long time. A lot of people don't know he was in TNA longer than he was in WWE. I would throw Frankie Kazarian in that conversation too. Low Ki was unbelievable, there's so many. James Storm, Chris Harris, they were a big part of the growth. [...] Elix Skipper, Beer Money. There's so many guys that made such a big difference. It’s hard to put a Mount Rushmore together, because everybody has their moment and how they got there and how much they meant to TNA."
"You know what was such a cool moment, though. You guys made so much noise that the folks at home were like, what is it? Who is it? So it was kind of cool that it worked out that way. But yeah, that was such an unbelievable moment."
"Everybody thinks I bulked up. I lost weight. I was not any heavier than I was before, but fasting is a big part of my diet as well. I’d done a three-day fast, just water. I'd done that maybe a week before I came back so I was shredded. I literally just got through doing a six-day fast, just water. That sucked too. But again, anything worth doing is hard. All you got to do is sit in that cold plunge. That's all you gotta do is sit down. All you gotta do in a sauna is just sit there. All you gotta do is not eat and drink water, these things are easy to do, or they should be, but we're addicted to so many different, lifestyles of being easy and nice. You know what the worst time to get the cold plunge is? Is when you're comfortable. It's perfect outside, it's perfect inside. Oh, it's great. And then you get the cold plunge like. But if you can get used to being uncomfortable, it's not that hard to be uncomfortable."
"I don’t know. I don’t make those decisions. I would love to have it, for sure, it'd be fun. Honestly, I think that there's something about, I can't explain it, why him and I gel so well together. I don't know what it is, because we're definitely not the same in any kind of way. It just works. The first time I got in the ring with him it was like, Wow, dude, that was cool. So, yeah, I would love the opportunity to work with Cena again."
"Well, it wasn't that he was pitching [crazy moments], he just wanted to perfect it, whatever we were doing he wanted to make sure it was spot on every time and you got to respect that. That's what I want. And then be able to bounce some stuff off of him, the guy could fight for real. So we were able to put a little bit of that stuff that he knew, a little bit of jiu-jitsu that he's taken and make it work. It was really a fun match, really unexpected, I think for fans to see us have such a good match together."
"I've thought about it a lot, much more than I should have. I should have known what I was doing by now. But it's so hard because you enjoy it so much and I enjoy being around my friends. Don't get me wrong, I love being at home, but the opportunity to see them and see them doing well, seeing them smile, and seeing them grow. Some of these guys like Roman for instance, his selling is on a different level. Jey Uso, Jimmy Uso, all these guys, they stepped up. If Roman stepped up, they stepped up with him. I just thought that was so impressive that they do that, and seeing them grow into these amazing Superstars. Gunther losing all that weight to get to where he's at now as the Heavyweight Champion, it's freaking awesome. Cody, seeing where he's at and what he had to go through to get to where he was at, and what he's doing now is at that position, he's the guy. He puts the work in. It’s really cool to see those guys hustle as much as they are and beat themselves up as much as they have, and still do well. I like seeing that."
"That's correct. I keep saying that. I've said this and said this, but I will not wrestle at 50, I promise you that."
"It was my call to change it [when I turned heel] too. Because as a bad guy I thought my song was a little too cool. Everybody loves that song. I love the song, but that's not who I was trying to be. I wanted you to not like me, that you despised me. I thought well if I change the song up, people are going to hate it, perfect. Then when I know I was coming back and I'm going to be the good guy again, I was like I want my old music back. And nobody said anything. They were like, yep, that's fine. So yeah, that was my decision."
"Nope, no opponent in mind. An idea that I will not share with you that I thought if I could get Undertaker to get in the ring with me, that I wanted to do. But there's an idea there that I think kind of sums up who AJ Styles is, and we'll see if it happens. You'll know it if it does."
"The relationship I have with God, family and that I have the best job on the planet."
