Mark Henry addresses AJ Styles’ fake retirement segment with Cody Rhodes on WWE Smackdown

As seen during the May 31st 2024 edition of WWE Smackdown, AJ Styles gave a fake retirement speech to advance his feud with WWE champion Cody Rhodes. While speaking on Busted Open Radio, Mark Henry addressed the segment being similar to his angle with John Cena in 2013…

“Mr. AJ Styles donned a blue jacket, and shook up the world. You talk about a historical moment. He trended. Not only did AJ Styles trend, but yours truly. I’m back. Of course, I never left. The fans know me. They understand what it is. I made retirements cool. Everyone that has ever retired since, they say, ‘He’s going to do a Mark Henry.’ When you coin a phrase, it’s pretty damn cool. Now, AJ Styles, as unbelievable of a job as he did, I’m going to have to get out the pink jacket, he’ll have to get the powder blue jacket, and we’ll have to do signings together. We have to get the in-person moment.”

“I know both of those guys. They thought about it and said, ‘Let’s do it like Mark did it.’ They did the same exact posturing. Even to the point, after the clothesline and beatdown, he did the same posturing of standing over him just like I did. When they went outside to the floor, all bets were off, they did a great job. The execution of it, the camera angles that they took was incredible.” (quotes courtesy of Jeremy Lambert)