AJ Styles wanted to retire at WrestleMania 41, but realized that it wasn’t the right way to go out.
Styles suffered a serious mid-foot ligament sprain (Lisfranc injury) on the October 4, 2024, episode of WWE SmackDown. The injury presented challenges for Styles, who said he basically had to re-learn how to walk and run while recovering.
WWE released a new video chronicling AJ Styles’ farewell tour. Styles said he originally planned on retiring at WrestleMania 41, but realized that he didn’t want to work his way back from an injury just to retire two months later. When he really thought about it, retiring at the Royal Rumble was poetic in a way, because it’s the same event he made his WWE debut at in 2016.
“You know, everyone wants to retire at WrestleMania, right? [It’s] the biggest show of the year that we do. And I was going to do exactly that. But I just came back from an injury that I was supposed to have to—it was supposed to retire me,” AJ Styles explained. The injury, it retires most [people who have it].
AJ Styles didn’t want to return for a two-month retirement tour
“But once I got healed up and was comfortable enough running and doing what I needed to do to be AJ Styles, it just didn’t feel right to come back for two months just to retire. It didn’t seem right. And I thought, what a better way to be able to leave on the pay-per-view where you debuted.”
AJ Styles retired after the 2026 Royal Rumble, where he lost to Gunther in a career-threatening match. John Cena recently said that Styles told him his retirement plans ahead of their match at Crown Jewel in Australia. Styles is scheduled to appear for a celebration ceremony on Monday’s episode of RAW in Atlanta.
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