AJ Styles says his son Avery is carrying the pressure that comes with the surname and that it is pushing him toward risks he does not need to take this early.
Avery Styles is 19 and has had fewer than ten professional matches. He debuted on June 26 for Squared Circle Action in Royston, Georgia, with his father in his corner, and won his Game Changer Wrestling debut against Alex Lev in Omaha on July 31.
Speaking on the debut episode of The AJ Styles Show with Tony Giles, recorded after watching footage of the GCW match, Styles started with what the trip itself represented.
“Yeah, he’s doing some really good things, and he’s learning some lessons, mind you. That was his first time traveling like on an airplane to wrestle on his own, you know, and that’s a big deal. Listen, it’s scary. He’s only he’s only 19.”
He put it in the context of others who have done harder things to get started, naming Indi Hartwell and Roxanne Perez, who traveled hours by bus to train.
“I know girls in wrestling who’ve done more than that, and I can’t imagine them being brave enough to do these things, and they have. So Indi Hartwell is another like the stuff that she done to get to where she’s at. What a story. Who else? There’s other ones that have driven, got on buses. Roxanne Perez got on buses and was driven five hours to go to training, so that’s how bad they want it.”
“This is why I think a lot of indie wrestlers go on to be stars because they have passion and they’re willing to do what it takes to get to the next level.”
Asked what it is like watching his son get attention this early, Styles was pleased and then immediately careful.
“Yeah, no, it’s it’s great to see him doing so well and embracing it so much. The unfortunate things he, I feel like he’s under a lot of pressure because of who his dad is, so he feels like he has to go out there do stuff that I sometimes I think are unnecessary. Like he didn’t need to do that there, because at the same time you got to put things in the right order, and so that you don’t get hurt to some degree because you got another show to. You’re trying to make it to the next level. If you blow out your knee and you have to get surgery, you’re down for nine months.”
He did not say which spot he meant, and he balanced the point straight away.
“But at the same time, you can’t worry about getting hurt because when you worry about getting hurt, you do because your mind is distracted, right?”
Styles then turned it on himself. He retired in January after losing to Gunther at the Royal Rumble, and said his wife has long described him as having one setting.
“You always said you got one gear, and she’s right. I got one gear. It’s all or nothing. When I couldn’t be AJ Styles exactly the way I wanted to be. It’s time to get out, and I was that was my biggest fear, even at the end of my career, is that I couldn’t be the AJ Styles that people remembered. Why do you think I threw a 450 in my last match? Just so you know, I could still do it.”
“But there are little things like that. I get it. It’s it’s hard being a second generation. There’s a lot of weight on your shoulders. Some guys have done way better than their fathers, but you know, I did do really well. So that’s tough. It’s tough.”
Asked whether he would have taken advice at that stage of his own career, Styles said the difference is what his son is being taught rather than whether he will listen.
“There’s some things that he’s getting taught that I never did. Like I never was taught the psychology part. We just assume that people are wrestling fans, and they know it. They don’t. They don’t.”
“There’s some things that we do. We can set up these good matches, and we got to make it easier for these fans to digest and understand as we’re doing them. If we just do them because we like, well, you know, we do this because it’s part of wrestling. Don’t do that. That’s not what wrestling is. It’s about making psychology a big part of it, so that when things happen, they understand it.”
“Psychology is a big part of wrestling, and you don’t think it is. You think it’s about moves, but you just see the highlights. But when you watch the full match, you go, ‘Ooh, wow, that was good. Oh, that’s how that happened.’ You know, that’s what I want. But these are the hard things to learn.”
