AJ Styles set off a debate last week when he said he would love for WWE to buy a wrestling company in Japan and run it the way it has run AAA in Mexico. Some fans read it as a shot at New Japan Pro-Wrestling, the company where Styles made his name overseas. He says that was never what he meant.
Speaking on his Phenomenally Retro podcast, Styles said he never named a promotion.
“Did I ever say New Japan Pro Wrestling? I can’t remember. Just a Japanese company. That’s more what I was alluding to,” Styles said.
The bigger objection was to fans invoking Hiroshi Tanahashi, the NJPW legend and current company president who retired from in-ring competition at Wrestle Kingdom 20 in January. Styles said pointing to Tanahashi missed his point entirely.
“People are like, ‘Oh, Tanahashi.’ There ain’t but one Tanahashi, and the fact that Japan came out and supported him the way that it did says a lot about that country, because he’s definitely one of my favorite guys in the wrestling business. Just a heart of gold,” Styles said.
He made clear the two are close.
“So just so you know, I’m not disrespecting my friend, by the way, Tanahashi. You don’t know him like I do. I promise you. I would never disrespect that guy,” Styles said. “But, you know, people are gonna say what they say because they think they know everything about wrestling.”
Styles has deep roots in Japan. After leaving TNA in 2013, he signed with NJPW, won the IWGP Heavyweight Championship in his first match against Kazuchika Okada, led Bullet Club and later beat Tanahashi for the title, a run that rebuilt his career before he signed with WWE in 2016. He retired from the ring in January after a career-on-the-line loss to Gunther at the Royal Rumble and now works with WWE in a non-wrestling role focused on developing talent.
His original pitch was that WWE could expand into Japan the way it has with AAA, keeping the promotion’s identity intact rather than turning it into WWE programming. The idea has come up elsewhere in wrestling this week. On Something to Wrestle, JBL, who works with AAA, said WWE moving into Japan is “not a matter of if, it’s a matter of when,” and pointed to AAA as the template for doing it without erasing the local culture.
