If any of the quotes in this article are used, please credit AJ Styles’ MIXER stream with an H/T to POST Wrestling for the transcriptions.
Former two-time WWE Champion AJ Styles competed in the main event of night one of WrestleMania 36 in a Boneyard match with The Undertaker. Styles was “buried alive” in the bout and had not been on WWE programming since the match. This past Monday on RAW, AJ made his return in a gauntlet match to determine the final participant in this year’s men’s Money In The Bank match.
Styles recently spoke about his return during his MIXER stream. He agreed with his chatroom that more could’ve been done with his return. He added that maybe more star power was needed in the match or had the COVID-19 pandemic not been going on and pro wrestling was in the state it was in prior to the pandemic, maybe WWE could’ve held off on bringing him back and switched up his character a bit.
“The return… could’ve been more, okay. I’ve heard people talk about, ‘Well I mean… kinda just wasted it. AJ Styles was buried alive, could’ve came back as a different character in a different mood and a different look, something different about AJ Styles and he came back and he was exactly the same before he got buried.’ I’m with you. Now, I think the circumstances had a lot to do with AJ Styles coming back when he did… but, the circumstances, the match… maybe we needed some more star power in the match. Maybe that’s what that was. I don’t know, I’m not tooting my own horn here, but, I wish we could’ve waited and had times been different, that could’ve been something that we would’ve went [with].”
AJ also talked about several other topics during the stream. He recalled when he was first negotiating with WWE about joining the company. There was a possibility that he wasn’t going to be able to don the name “AJ Styles” and AJ told Paul “Triple H” Levesque that he had no issue with changing his name.
“When I signed, or was looking to sign with WWE, Triple H was like, ‘Hey man, [you] may not be able to keep ‘AJ Styles.’ We may have to give you another name.’ I said, ‘No problem with that. It’s just I have this huge tattoo on my side that says ‘AJ’. But I’m totally cool with whatever you guys wanna do. I don’t care, not a big deal to me.’”
In a prior MIXER stream, Styles shared his thoughts about Luke Gallows and Karl Anderson being released from WWE. AJ briefly spoke about his friends again and feels that wherever they land, whether it’d be New Japan Pro-Wrestling or All Elite Wrestling, he thinks Gallows and Anderson will do just fine and will be taken care of.
“I’m sure they will. I’m sure those dudes are on their way to going to places that will enjoy them being there. Whether it’d be AEW or New Japan, I promise you they’ll be taken care of.”
AJ Styles is joined by Aleister Black, Rey Mysterio, Otis, King Corbin and Daniel Bryan in the men’s Money In The Bank ladder match that is taking place inside of WWE headquarters in Stamford, Connecticut and it’ll also take place at the same time as the women’s Money In The Bank ladder match.
