Speculations have emerged about how WWE’s shoot-like AJ Styles storyline could unfold.
During the commercial break before his match against El Americano, AJ Styles went on a massive tirade, which many believed was a shoot because the segment occurred during the commercial break; something Styles himself also addressed.
However, Dave Meltzer of The Wrestling Observer Radio clarified that this was not a shoot and offered insight into how the angle’s endgame might play out.
Dave Meltzer Speaks About WWE’s Shoot-Like AJ Styles Storyline, “It’s A Unique Angle”
Speaking on the latest episode of Wrestling Observer Radio, Meltzer stated that the company was playing out the storyline that was teased out on the cryptic retirement post The Phenomenal One put up a few days ago. He noted that the promo unfolded like a shoot interview, but in fact, took place in the ring.
Meltzer then spoke about how the former WWE Champion had told him many years ago that he did not want to wrestle beyond the age of 40. Meltzer highlighted that Styles was 48 now, and the storyline was in some ways was replicating his real-life status with the company:
So they had AJ [Styles] do a promo, and AJ went out there and you know basically said that he has no friends here, kind of like complaining about booking and that Karl Anderson and [Luke] Gallows aren’t there, Michin is on SmackDown. I mean, it’s an interview that is being done, and I mean I can see all the different things that have happened; they are doing a Twitter [X], you know, social media storyline. AJ had the hourglass thing with the idea that, ‘My time is running out.’
Which, I mean, he has talked about this, I mean, I remember years ago we had AJ on one of our shows, and he said that, ‘I’m not going to be wrestling after the age of 40.’ And I think that I said, ‘Everyone says that.’ He goes, ‘Yeah, but I’m not going to wrestle after the age of 40.’ And you know, I think he’s 47, 48 now. So I’m, you know, his contract, you know, the word is out. His contract is up in February, and whatever the situation is, you know, obviously, it happened on television. It’s not a shoot.”
Meltzer further explained that AJ Styles had recently signed a short-term contract extension, indicating he may not stay much longer. He speculated this could be a way to build toward a farewell storyline:
[Okay.] But they’re doing some kind of storyline, and I think the idea was that they did it on the foreign show, not the US show. It’s kind of clever because if it was on the US show, everybody would go out storyline, but it’s like it was during the commercial.
So now people are going like it wasn’t scripted. So it’s a unique angle, I don’t know what the angle is, but it is a unique angle that they are working on, something to do with him, you know, contract being up. And I don’t know how much longer he’s going to go because when he signed the new deal, it was a short-term deal. So that tells me that he’s not — when he signed the deal, that he wasn’t planning on wrestling much longer.
So it may be a way to do, you know, kind of call attention to a farewell stuff. So yeah, I don’t know exactly what it all is, but that’s what happened. They, did a, he did an interview that was only a, only you could only see it if you were watching the international version of the show.”
The promo definitely fulfilled its goal of getting attention, and fans will have to wait and see how this story develops.