AJ Styles says he was able to return to WWE from foot injury “literally by the skin of my teeth”
AJ Styles returned to WWE television at the 2025 Royal Rumble PLE after suffering a foot injury in the fall of 2024. Styles spoke to Chris Van Vliet about the injury and here are the highlights courtesy of ChrisVanVliet.com…
On getting injured in his TV return match: “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 pissed 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.”
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 not losing a step when he came back: “I think it’s one of those things where I’m so afraid of losing a step I’m doing everything I can to make sure it doesn’t look like I’ve lost the step. But it took a toll on me. Because I go out there and I got two gears, all or nothing. Is that one gear? I don’t know. But the fact that, yeah, I’m gonna go in there and I’m gonna give it my all. And then after the adrenaline wears off, I was like now it’s sore a little bit. So you might catch me limping afterwards until I get used to this foot, stretching it out, all those tendons and stuff like that. But so far so good.”
On if he thought this was the end of his career: “I was like this is it. How am I going to recover again? I was like this might be it, and it sucked. Because like you said, I just came back. I was not hurt previously after I wrestled Cody in an ‘I Quit’ match. I was not hurt during that time. So I’m sitting at home going okay, guys, okay. Then, hey, we’re going to bring you back in Nashville. It’s going to be great. Hurt myself, yeah I was p*ssed. I was mad. It may look like I was acting. I was not.”