Last month, WWE Champion AJ Styles did an interview with ESPN to promote his title defense against Samoa Joe at the SummerSlam pay-per-view. Styles and Joe discussed their rivalry with one another, even beyond WWE, at length. At one point, Styles began talking about signing with WWE.
It turns out, he initially had a conversation with Triple H about changing his name. A huge “AJ” tattoo on his side, however, might have halted those plans:
“When Triple H and I were talking, he said, ‘I don’t know if we’ll be able to keep your name.’ I said, ‘That’s fine, I’ll be any name you want me to be called, except I do have this huge AJ tattoo on my side so that might be a problem,'” Styles said.
“I think it worked out for the best because we weren’t taken and being changed into something else. We were the same characters that they saw from different companies and that they were familiar with and people were already invested in. I think that was a good move by WWE.”
