AJ Styles explains why he was “in a weird state of mind” prior to retirement from WWE
While speaking with Chris Van Vliet, AJ Styles was asked how long he had been thinking about retiring from professional wrestling. Here was what Styles had to say…
“Well, I was gonna retire before the Royal Rumble at WrestleMania [41], but I just come back from my foot injury, and it just didn’t seem right. I was feeling kind of good, actually.
Once I got my foot back in order, I was like, man. I’m sure money was a thing, because I didn’t ask for more money, I just wanted to extend it, but then again, they did right by me, paying me well, and so I know that was an issue, but then we finally got that in order, and I was like, all right, here we go.
I’m not saying I didn’t get weird near the end of knowing I was going to retire or leave WWE; I got weird, dude.
[In what way?] I just was questioning everything. A normal, sane AJ Styles would not question this; it would just be what it is.
Even the moment where I found out Gunther was in the Royal Rumble, and I think that it already been explained that he was in the Royal Rumble, and that I got this match, but I was like, what the freak? I think I made Triple H feel awful about, oh man, I didn’t think about that.
When reality is, nobody thought about that; nobody did, nobody cared, even when Gunther came out at the Royal Rumble and got beat. In fact, it should have made more sense that he got beat because he was in the ring with AJ Styles. He got exhausted in that match, of course he’s not going to win the Royal Rumble.
So I just got weird, man. So, my apologies to everyone who I acted that way, and I was just in a weird state of mind.”
Thanks to ChrisVanVliet.com for the quote.