AJ Styles sat down with Chris Van Vliet in Nashville, Tennessee to discuss his retirement match with Gunther at the Royal Rumble, why he didn’t wait until WrestleMania, if there were ever plans for a retirement tour, his phenomenal match with John Cena in Australia, being inducted into the Hall of Fame, his son Avery Styles following in his footsteps, if he really is done with wrestling, and more!

So, how’s retirement treating you?

“Oh, wow. It’s funny, because I think I’m gone a little bit more than I was when I was actually working. I don’t know how that works, but to get the chance to go down to the Performance Center and work with those men and women down there, it’s pretty awesome. It scratches that itch, and being involved with Evolve is awesome. I produced a couple of matches, which I didn’t think I’d enjoy, but I love it. I’ve heard this is how it all starts, you start producing, the next thing you know, you get heavily involved with certain kind of things. But it’s really cool to be working with the young talent and the light bulb going off. I’m trying to give my moves away, like, ‘Hey, try this, try this, try this, try this, I’m not gonna use it anymore.’ I’m having fun.”

How long had you been thinking about retiring?

“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, and there was some like, I don’t know. 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 had 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.”

Do you miss it?

“I don’t miss falling down, I don’t miss getting hurt, I don’t miss any of that, but you’re always going to miss that part of the excitement that you’re about to go to the ring and have a great match. You’re going to miss that, that’s just the high you don’t get from anything else. But again, I get to go down the Performance Center and scratch that itch and just throw myself into helping these performers down at the PC get better.”

I think when you said that you were going to have your final match in 2026, nobody expected it to be in January of 2026. Why not push it to WrestleMania? Why not have your last match at WrestleMania this year?

“That wasn’t my pay-per-view or PLE. That’s not where I started. For me to be able to debut and then end it at the Royal Rumble, and I don’t care that it was in Saudi Arabia, it’s still the Royal Rumble. That meant something to me. I know there’s people who have WrestleMania as their big PLE, but mine was the Royal Rumble.”

I think the general consensus is the match that you had with John Cena was his best match during his retirement tour. So what went into planning that match? What was the idea behind that match?

“Well, it was the opportunity to throw back to every guy that we ever wrestled that meant a lot to us, and that’s all it was. I mean, we didn’t have much of a story, so we had to tell one in the ring. I’m pretty sure I wasn’t supposed to wrestle him. I don’t care what anybody says. I don’t know who called it, but I know that I wasn’t in the picture. Something else needed to happen. I don’t know what that was, someone’s gonna have to tell that story, because I don’t know. I’m just positive that I wasn’t the guy that was supposed to wrestle him.”

Was there a move that you did during that match, or he did that you were like, I don’t know if I can do that. I don’t know.

“So, Fade to Black, shout out to Frankie Kazarian. Yeah, and I’ve never done that move before, and I told John, I said, ‘I don’t know if I can do it. He’s like, ‘Yeah, you can. I’m just gonna tuck my face into your butt hole, and it’ll be fine.’ We watch it back, and I was like, ‘Freak, that’s great.’ Even I think Triple H said something like, ‘I don’t know, man.’ So it turned out to look really good, as far as I know, from what I saw. There was a point in there where they were chanting ‘619, 619’ because they knew what we were doing at this point. So the ref walks over, and he goes ‘619.’ Me to John? ‘No, John’s going to 619 you?’ John’s going to 619 me?! All right. So I sell over there, he gives me the drop toe hold. I heard him go, ‘Stop me before I get to you.’ I didn’t say anything. He goes, ‘Hey, stop me as I go for this.’ I didn’t say anything. ‘Stop me before I get to this!’ He yelled. I go, okay. He goes, and I clothesline him. I joke around, maybe if John would have tried the 619, it may have turned into the 61. I’m not sure. So that was just kind of funny to me at that time, but for people to understand what we were doing in that match, once they got the gist of it, I thought it was really cool, and to end it with the tombstone that nobody does was pretty freaking cool, right up to his finisher. I was like, wow, that was fun.”

Was there ever talk earlier on in the year of you having a match with John Cena on his farewell tour?

“Nothing, never a talk of me having a match with John. Listen, I just assume I’m not that guy. I’m not that guy. Sometimes I feel like even though I’ve been in WWE for 10 years, I’m not a WWE guy. So, and that was just one of those times.”

Did you think about having a retirement tour?

“No, not at all. I didn’t need one. It was perfectly fine the way I was doing it. In fact, not a lot of people do. So I saw Cody and John calling their match at WrestleMania, I believe it was the one that I was supposed to retire at, and I kind of went up to him and I go, ‘Hey, this is to us in our last WrestleManias.’ He’s like, huh? I was like, yeah, this is it. So it was kind of cool to be there for his last run, and I credit John for that. It wasn’t about the tour; it was about making money for WWE and him getting his flowers at the same time.”

Are you done-done? We all know how wrestling retirements work.

“That’s right, but I have said this before, and I’ll say it again. Usually we’re granted one comeback for one match. I’m not saying it’s gonna happen. I’m just saying usually it’s granted. Never say never.”