WWE Intercontinental Champion AJ Styles spoke to fans during his Twitch stream on Tuesday night, which you can see in full at this link. Styles specifically discussed his issues with former RAW Executive Director Paul Heyman, and went into more detail about believing he’s the one to blame for current Impact Wrestling stars Luke Gallows and Karl Anderson being released from WWE. During the stream, the topic of the post-WWE release interview that Gallows and Anderson did this past weekend came up, mainly the controversial parts about Heyman.
Styles noted that he first heard about The Good Brothers getting released while filming the Money In the Bank Ladder Match at WWE HQ. Heyman allegedly brought AJ into his office after claiming he had nothing to do with the releases. AJ also claimed that Heyman told him that he would’ve fought for Gallows and Anderson to stay, if he had known they were going to be released. He also allegedly claimed he wasn’t told about their releases ahead of time for that reason. AJ said he told a friend in WWE what Heyman had said, and that person confirmed to that him Gallows and Anderson were not on the list of people to be released, but that Heyman pushed for them to be fired for several reasons, including the idea that they were making too much money.
“Paul advocated for Gallows and Anderson to get released. It’s that simple. Their name wasn’t even on the list until Paul brought it up,” Styles said. (H/T to Pro Wrestling Sheet) “I think the reason why he did what he did – well, there’s a couple of reasons, he’s just a liar and that’s what they do – but it was because he knew that he had nothing that he wanted to do with them. He didn’t wanna get them to the next level. He didn’t want to do anything for them. He didn’t want to help them become bigger stars. He didn’t want to do any of that. So, the best way to do that after everything he had said to them was to get them out of there. That’s the real story.”
AJ also claimed he moved to SmackDown because he couldn’t stand to look at Heyman any longer. He added that many people in the company “despised” Heyman because of his lies.
“I talked to a lot of guys about this situation, and you wouldn’t believe how many people that I work with despised this guy because of his lies,” AJ said. (H/T to Pro Wrestling Sheet) “And he’d find ways to try and throw them under the bus when he screwed up, he would try to throw them under the bus so they would get in trouble. I heard this from several, several different people.
“It was almost kinda hard to find someone who liked him. And I didn’t know this. I just assumed everybody liked him and I was the only one. Vince [McMahon] is a very smart man and he can see through a lot of crap. I think he finally saw what everybody already knew and said, ‘You know what, man? You’ve done some great things in the past, but you’re just not well-liked here. Maybe hit the bricks and we’ll let you be the advocate for Brock Lesnar. You do it well, we can’t deny that.’ Right? He’s good at that. But I think that’s as far as it needs to go.”
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