AJ Styles may be retired, but he is not ruling out a return under the right circumstances, and the reason is his family.
Speaking on Insight With Chris Van Vliet from the Nashville academy where he helps train, Styles said the door is not fully closed.
“Usually, we’re granted one comeback for one match. I’m not saying it’s going to happen. I’m just saying usually it’s granted,” Styles said. “The opportunity to wrestle with my son or sons, that’d be pretty cool.”
That is a live possibility because his 19-year-old son, who wrestles as Avery Styles, has already debuted, and Styles said he came away floored.
“After seeing his debut match, so proud of him. It was incredible. He did so well,” Styles said. “If you could see my first match and his first match, holy moly, he’s day one better than me. But I didn’t have a guy coaching me that had done all the things that I have done.”
Coaching his own son, though, has come with a specific challenge.
“He may be the worst at yeah-buts,” Styles said. “Hey, I want to do this, Dad. I go, yeah, you don’t need that there. But Dad, dude, he wants to be like his dad, and I was like, you have to be you. You can do stuff that I have done before, but that’s not who you are. You have to be Avery Styles. You have to be different.”
Styles said the pressure of the name weighs on his son, and he understands it.
“He’s told me, and I get it. And I said, listen, you don’t have to do this,” Styles said. “I want to say I didn’t do it, I didn’t have to. But your dad wasn’t AJ Styles. So it’s finding out what’s best for him.”
For all the good his son’s coaching pedigree gives him, Styles said one thing cannot be taught, and it is the same thing he preaches at the Performance Center.
“There’s little things that you can’t coach, like time. Not rushing, it’s a thing. It’s a young disease that most wrestlers have. They rush through everything,” Styles said. “If we can figure out how to slow them down, that’s the magic right there.”
He said the resemblance between father and son is already uncanny, pointing to side-by-side photos of the two doing the Phenomenal Forearm.
“It’s really cool. Identical,” Styles said. “He did extremely well, and he’s got another match coming up.”
Styles, who has four children whose initials all spell AJ, said his oldest son may be catching the bug too.
“My oldest son got bit by the bug a little bit, seeing his brother come out on his debut, and I think there might be a chance that you’ll see them tagging together once he’s done with baseball,” Styles said. “It would surprise me if my daughter got into it, because she watches wrestling all the time.”
