AJ Styles retired at the Royal Rumble in January, losing a career-on-the-line match to Gunther in Riyadh. Looking back, he says the version of himself in those final weeks was second-guessing things that did not need it, and one of those moments landed on Triple H.
Speaking on Insight With Chris Van Vliet, Styles admitted his mindset was off as the end approached.
“I’m not saying I didn’t get weird near the end of knowing I was going to retire or leave WWE. I got weird, dude. I just was questioning everything,” Styles said. “A normal, sane AJ Styles would not question this. It would just be what it is.”
The specific thing that nagged at him was the framing of his own retirement match against Gunther, and he worried he had dumped that concern on WWE’s Chief Content Officer.
“Even the moment where I found out Gunther was in the Royal Rumble, and I think it had already been explained that he was in the Royal Rumble, and that I got this match, but I was like, what the freak?” Styles said. “I think I made Triple H feel awful about it, oh man, I didn’t think about that.”
On reflection, Styles said the worry was his alone, and that it never mattered to anyone else, including once the match played out.
“The reality is, nobody thought about that, nobody did, nobody cared, even when Gunther came out at the Royal Rumble and got beat,” Styles said. “In fact, it should have made more sense that he got beat because he was in the ring with AJ Styles. He got exhausted in that match. Of course he’s not going to win the Royal Rumble.”
He closed with an apology for how he carried himself in that stretch.
“So I just got weird, man. So my apologies to everyone who I acted that way, and I was just in a weird state of mind,” Styles said.
Styles put his career on the line against Gunther after a heated feud that grew out of Gunther’s submission wins over John Cena and, earlier, Goldberg. Gunther, dubbed WWE’s “Career Killer,” made Styles pass out to a sleeper hold to end The Phenomenal One’s in-ring run, nearly 10 years to the day after Styles made his WWE debut as a surprise entrant in the 2016 Royal Rumble. He has since moved into a backstage and ambassador role with the company.
