AJ Styles Addresses WWE Retirement Issue, Final Match In Riyadh
AJ Styles appeared as a guest on the latest episode of INSIGHT with Chris Van Vliet for an in-depth interview covering all things pro wrestling and WWE.
During the discussion (see video below), “The Phenomenal One” spoke about what he thinks made Triple H feel awful during his retirement days, the decision to have Gunther be his final opponent, and retiring from WWE with his last match being in Saudi Arabia.
Featured below are some of the highlights from the interview where he touches on these topics with his thoughts. Also embedded below is a complete video archive of the discussion.
On thinking he made Triple H feel awful when he learned Gunther would compete in Royal Rumble after retiring him: “I just was questioning everything. A normal, sane AJ Styles would not question this; it would just be what it is. Even the moment where I found out GUNTHER was in the Royal Rumble, and I think that it already been explained that he was in the Royal Rumble, and that I got this match, but I was like, ‘What the freak?’ I think I made Triple H feel awful about, oh man, I didn’t think about that. When reality is, nobody thought about that; nobody did, nobody cared, even when GUNTHER came out at the Royal Rumble and got beat. 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. 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.”
On how it meant something to him to retire at Royal Rumble, regardless of it being in Saudi Arabia: “[WrestleMania] wasn’t my pay-per-view or PLE. That’s not where I started. For me to be able to debut and then end it at the Royal Rumble — and I don’t care that it was in Saudi Arabia — it’s still the Royal Rumble. That meant something to me. I know there’s people who have WrestleMania as their big PLE, but mine was the Royal Rumble.”
On Gunther being his final opponent: “That wasn’t up to me. It was up to the story. He had retired Goldberg, he had retired John Cena. Why not retire AJ Styles?”
