“The Phenomenal One” only plans on being phenomenal inside the squared circle for another year or two.
AJ Styles sat down for an in-depth interview on the latest episode of the popular INSIGHT with Chris Van Vliet podcast, during which he spoke about his recent injury hiatus from WWE, when he plans to retire, an infamous production botch from his WWE Royal Rumble debut and more.
Featured below are some of the highlights from the interview sent to us directly by Chris Van Vliet where Styles touches on these topics with his thoughts.
On getting injured in October 2024: “I knew I’d broke it. Because if you’ve broken it before, same foot, I was like I broke it again, and I’m p*ssed because now I know how long it’s gonna take to get back. But again, little did I know it was much worse than a break.”
On what was worse about it: “Because it’s tendons, and my doctor, who is also my friend was like, ‘Do not look this up.’ I’m like I’m gonna look this up, and it’s a career-ending injury. It happens in car wrecks and in professional football mostly, that’s usually when it happens. And in football, of course, it’s one of those things depending how severe it is. I was literally by the skin of my teeth able to [come back], they were like, ‘We can have surgery, we could do surgery on your foot and it will heal faster, but there could be complications as you get older. We don’t know. We don’t have to have surgery, let’s try to do some therapy and get it back to where it is.’ Lucky for me I was able to get that therapy that I needed. Wasn’t easy. It sucked. It’s so crazy that you have to learn how to walk again to a certain extent, like how did I forget how to run? Little things like that. Because I was in a boot for six weeks, then I got six weeks in therapy trying to figure this thing out. It’ll mess with you.”
On the cameras missing his Royal Rumble debut: “You know what was such a cool moment, though. You guys made so much noise that the folks at home were like, ‘What is it? Who is it?’ So it was kind of cool that it worked out that way. But yeah, that was such an unbelievable moment.”
On another match with John Cena: “I don’t know. I don’t make those decisions. I would love to have it for sure, it’d be fun. Honestly, I think that there’s something about, I can’t explain why him and I gel so well together. I don’t know what it is, because we’re definitely not the same in any kind of way. It just works. The first time I got in the ring with him it was like, Wow, dude, that was cool. So, yeah, I would love the opportunity to work with Cena again.”
On if he has thought about how much longer he will wrestle: “I’ve thought about it a lot, much more than I should have. I should have known what I was doing by now. But it’s so hard because you enjoy it so much and I enjoy being around my friends. Don’t get me wrong, I love being at home, but the opportunity to see them and see them doing well, seeing them smile, and seeing them grow. Some of these guys like Roman for instance, his selling is on a different level. Jey Uso, Jimmy Uso, all these guys, they stepped up. If Roman stepped up, they stepped up with him. I just thought that was so impressive that they do that, and seeing them grow into these amazing Superstars. Gunther losing all that weight to get to where he’s at now as the Heavyweight Champion, it’s freaking awesome. Cody, seeing where he’s at and what he had to go through to get to where he was at and what he’s doing now at that position, he’s the guy. He puts the work in. It’s really cool to see those guys hustle as much as they are and beat themselves up as much as they have, and still do well. I like seeing that.”
On not wrestling in his 50s: “That’s correct. I keep saying that. I’ve said this and said this, but I will not wrestle at 50, I promise you that.”
