Elijah Burke Explains His AJ Styles Lockdown 2010 Decision

Elijah Burke says he worried about the effect on his career if he refused to accept a changed finish against AJ Styles at TNA Lockdown 2010. Burke had previously said he was once expected to win the world title there; his new explanation focuses on why he chose not to fight the revised plan.

Speaking with Alacon Jerome Howse on Pope & The Conman, Burke described a disagreement in the creative room over whether that was the right time for a title change. Styles ultimately retained the TNA World Heavyweight Championship in their cage match. Burke said he feared that refusing the revised finish could make him appear unwilling to put Styles over, a reputation he did not want.

“If it’s going to affect me, my standing, am I going to be seen as being difficult? I mean, that goes back to, for instance, when I was wrestling AJ Styles at Lockdown. I was supposed to win the title. There was some stuff going on in the writer room, and there was a debate. ‘No, now’s not the time.’ ‘Yes, it’s the time.’ I could have refused so that the plan stays the same. But then what happens to Pope moving forward? I’m being viewed as being difficult. I didn’t want to put AJ over. I didn’t want to lose. And so my career is possibly done in 2010, or I’m on a downward trajectory. And I would have had a bad rap that followed me.”