AJ Styles has shared the ring with some of the biggest names in professional wrestling, but one rivalry from his TNA Wrestling days still stands out as one of his favorites. During a recent episode of the Phenomenally Retro Podcast, Styles reflected on his memorable feud with Abyss and revealed that there was once internal discussion about bringing the monster character into a WWE Royal Rumble.
While discussing some of his favorite matches, Styles pointed to a brutal encounter with Abyss at TNA’s Lockdown event. At the time, the pay-per-view had a unique concept where every match on the card took place inside a steel cage. Because of that stipulation, Styles said he and Abyss had to get creative in order to make their main event feel different from the rest of the show.
“One of my favorite matches is with him. The… oh, I don’t remember the cage match. What it was called? Was it Lockdown? Yes. So this was the first time every match was in a cage and we were the main event. They go, ‘Well, what the heck are we going to do? Every match was in a cage.’ So we started our first… I believe it was the first 10 minutes of our match, the match hadn’t even started yet. It was on the outside. We’re going fighting all around and then once we get in the ring, ding ding ding, the match starts.”
Once the action moved inside the cage, the match continued for another extended stretch and featured the kind of chaos fans often associated with Abyss matches.
“We did another 10 to 15 minutes. But it was one of my favorite matches because… I mean tacks, I got busted open, chains, top of the cage, like outside of the cage. It was… I would love to tell you it was me that thought of all that stuff, but I’m pretty sure it was both of us that came up with it. But it was a brilliant match based on what we had to work with.”
Styles made it clear he still holds Abyss in extremely high regard, especially when it comes to big men who can do more than simply rely on size and power inside the ring.
“But it’s like you said, he was probably one of the better big men definitely that I’ve ever wrestled. He is right up there in my top five of big men that could do it all and was willing to do it and could go and had great moves and a different character. Like he was so good, man.”
That admiration is part of the reason Styles wishes the Abyss character could have had at least one appearance on WWE television. According to Styles, there was once discussion about bringing Abyss into a Royal Rumble match, but the idea ultimately never moved forward.
“There was a moment in time where we thought we were going to have him in the Royal Rumble and it didn’t go through and I hate that for him. I wish it hadn’t. It would have been just like, ‘Ah, okay, stamp on Abyss, the character finally made it to the WWE.’ I would have wanted that, but it never happened. I guess somebody didn’t agree with it, who knows.”
Although the appearance never materialized, Abyss remains one of the most memorable characters from TNA’s early years. For Styles, the monster character deserved at least one moment on WWE’s biggest stage.
