AJ Styles addresses the situation with fans swarming wrestlers “like bees” during WWE WrestleMania 42 week
It was noted by Mike Johnson of PWInsider.com that the lack of security at the hotel was a topic of conversation during WrestleMania 42 week. While speaking on his podcast, AJ Styles addressed the fan interactions…
“Here’s the thing that fans have to accept: even when we’re just walking through the hotel to get to our room, we’re not even hanging out—we’re just trying to get to our room.
We’ve been at signings all day, and you get kind of exhausted because we’re trying to be in a good mood for you, especially for people who paid to see it. We want to make sure you get your money’s worth, and it’s a little exhausting. I know you’re like, ‘Well, what are you gonna do? All you do is stand there.’ But we’re doing it for a couple hours.
So, I don’t think anybody was impolite to a degree. For instance, I’m not taking pictures because once I start, I’ll never stop. And if I have my family, I can’t do that. So even then, I said, ‘Hey, I’m not taking pictures right now. I’m sorry.’
And they just swarm me like bees. Even this one guy—after I told him, ‘No pictures, I can’t’—he was walking and just doing that, leaning on me and stuff like that. I’m like, ‘Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.’ Finally, security was able to find me and take me to the elevator.
I understand that they think they know the superstars because they’ve watched them for so long, right? But at the same time, you’ve got to remember that they’re real people. It can get overwhelming when that many people swarm you like that.
So I get it—no means no. You know, pictures and whatnot—if they ask you not to, just chill out.
I don’t normally do a lot of stuff at airports because the people who have waited there so they can sign five or six or seven of their things are going to sell them. So they’ve ruined it for a lot of people.
I’m like, ‘I’m not signing.’ But if I see you outside and it’s just me and you at a restaurant, man, I’m happy to sign something for you. I’ll take a picture with you—that doesn’t bother me one bit. But when we’re in a group of hundreds of people, I can’t do that.
So it can be difficult in all these different situations, and security—there wasn’t enough, and they were overworked, I’m sure, because of everything they had to do. They had no idea that it could be this bad.”