AJ Styles broke down what walking away from wrestling has actually felt like, and the picture he painted on Chris Van Vliet’s Insight podcast was far from tidy. The Phenomenal One, who retired after his Royal Rumble loss to Gunther, described the exact moment it hit him backstage.
“It was shortly after, when I was done hugging everybody, it really hit me. I knew it was about to happen, so I had to get away from everybody. I stood there for a second, gathered my thoughts, and shed a couple tears, because AJ Styles is no longer wrestling again. That was tough.”
Grieving A Character He Played For 27 Years
Styles framed the loss not just as the end of a job but the death of a version of himself. He said the in-ring performer fans knew is simply gone.
“This character that has been AJ Styles for 27 years no longer exists. I can be AJ Styles, but AJ Styles in the ring, he’s there, that’s not going to happen. It’s gone. It’s a hard pill to swallow, knowing you’re not going to walk down the aisle anymore.”
He admitted the lead-up messed with his head. “I’m not saying I didn’t get weird near the end of knowing I was going to retire. I got weird, dude. I just was questioning everything, everything that a normal, sane AJ Styles would not question.”
Life After The Only Thing He Ever Knew
Styles has been open about the identity crisis that followed, telling Van Vliet that wrestling consumed him so completely he never built anything else. “It’s difficult because this is all I’ve ever known. The only way you get to this point, where you’ve reached the heights, is you have to be obsessed with it, and I was. So I didn’t know anything else. What is life after? It’s very confusing and emotional.”
He’s still finding new outlets in retirement, from coaching younger talent to a surprising new role officiating weddings. The full conversation with Chris Van Vliet also covered his Hall of Fame induction and what comes next.
AJ Styles and Tony Giles host the The Phenomenally Retro Podcast, a weekly video show dedicated to retro video games, professional wrestling, and more.
