During his latest Mixer stream, AJ Styles addressed the rumors surrounding his move from Raw to Friday Night SmackDown. There were stories floating around claiming that Styles was bullied off of Raw. Another story was told to Dave Meltzer. A WWE source told Meltzer that Styles was upset at Heyman and blamed him for Luke Gallows and Karl Anderson being released.
Meltzer wrote the following on the Wrestling Observer Forum on 6/13: “Actually the reason was that he was furious that Gallows & Anderson were fired. Blamed Heyman. Classic case of JR/JJ/Laurinaitis syndrome. Vince is the one who made the decision but I suppose he felt Heyman could have fought him on it. So he wanted to go to the side where the guy in charge isn’t fighting Vince on something like that either.”
Styles refuted the claims. He said, “there were some rumors going around that AJ Styles left Raw to go to SmackDown because he was being bullied. That may be the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard. I’m a grown man. If there was some bullying going on that upset me enough to leave Raw and go to SmackDown, I would handle it…”
He continued, “when it came to the rumor about Paul Heyman and me being upset with him because he didn’t take up for Gallows and Anderson before they got released, that’s not what it was at all. Not even close. I’ll give you a snippet of what me, Gallows and Anderson already know. He’s a liar, now you know. I’m sure you’ve heard that before if you go back to his ECW days, you’ll hear that. He’s a bold-faced liar. That’s my take on that. I will let Gallows and Anderson…”
Styles says he’s been treated well by WWE and he understands that cuts needed to be made. He says he would have done things differently but things will work out for Gallows and Anderson because they will be happier.
Styles said Gallows and Anderson will go into details on Talk N’ Shop when they are legally able to. They will be legally able to do what they want on July 18 when their WWE non-compete expires.
Here is a clip with his comments about Heyman:
AJ Styles says he wasn't bullied off of Raw to SmackDown and he calls Paul Heyman a bold-faced liar. AJ says Gallows and Anderson will talk about everything on Talk N' Shop pic.twitter.com/lXkAeOFcUB
— Wrestling News (@WrestlingNewsCo) July 10, 2020
