AJ Styles expecting to retire within the next year

[Jimmy King]

What do you mean Cena? Cena is retiring this year lol

It’s Cena vs AJ Styles at Crown Jewel next month.

 

[Sha-J Lee]

It’s Cena vs AJ Styles at Crown Jewel next month.

I thought he meant next year

 

[Tommy MBE]

Man we might get AJ v Okada , v Ospreay and Omega. Triple O sounds like a good idea .

 

[camdudetenger9]

But yeah AJ has been one of the best in the world for almost 30 years. Dude was the face of RoH and TNA, and major player in NJPW and of course WWE. He’s definitely earned his retirement. And quite honestly I don’t ever see him being a top guy in wwe again so I’m good with this.

yup and in my opinion if the only company that aj styles would be that forever type top guy which actually does makes sense is in tna and njpw

which is in a way funny when it comes to the term being the top guy because when mr woo woo woo left wwe as a jobber he went into the indies like gcw and nwa got promoted to main eventer and since then still is one of the top guy in the indies

and its the same with cody rhodes when he left wwe as a jobber and then joined the indies and other top main companys became there top guy in roh nwa njpw tna and aew then left those companys rejoined the wwe as the new top guy

 

[Hosferatu]

I think people who didn't watch/haven't watched 2000s ROH mistakenly view AJ as one of the "face of ROH" guys but that was certainly never the case. Joe, Danielson and Punk, yes. Then you also have Ki, Homicide, McGuinness and Aries, just from the 2000s ... AJ was never one of those primary guys for ROH, presumably because he was a main TNA guy right off the bat and didn't have the availability of the others. I think he will get inducted into the ROH HOF someday as long as it carries on, but he's probably not one of the top 20 most important guys in that company's history.

 

[Professor Booty]

I don’t even think of AJ as an ROH guy at all

 

[Hosferatu]

I don’t even think of AJ as an ROH guy at all

Rightfully so

 

[R-Troop]

What do you mean Cena? Cena is retiring this year lol

I feel like this is an unannounced AJ farewell tour too. In this tour they are giving both AJ and Cena each other one last time.

 

[R-Troop]

I don’t even think of AJ as an ROH guy at all

Honestly didn't even realize he ever did ROH

 

[Chris]

Honestly didn't even realize he ever did ROH

His best time was actually post TNA/Pre NJPW in the 2010s with some NJPW bullet Club crossover if I remember right. Prior to that he was more like just a guest from TNA as Hoss said

 

[Y2Jayne]

The Lone Wolf Styles was awesome, back when he was using Evil Ways as his music and grew his hair for the first time.

I'm still surprised WWE pushed him so much, I was expecting what basically happened to the MCMG when he joined, but I'm glad he went as high on the card as he did.

 

[Brett]

His best time was actually post TNA/Pre NJPW in the 2010s with some NJPW bullet Club crossover if I remember right. Prior to that he was more like just a guest from TNA as Hoss said

I hate to be this guy, but AJ was huge for ROH in the first 4 years of the company. Once the RF shit happened, TNA pulled any conracted talent from taking ROH dates. Had that not happened he was the first ever Pure champion and was working almost every ROH date up until the pull from events. Also was what the second tag champion with Red. His feuds with Paul London and Jimmy Rave (which funny enough occurred after the ban from ROH) were great and then a list of great matches was right on par with any of those early guys like Daniels, Low-Ki, Joe, Bryan. I mean hell Dragon was hardly around from late 02-05 with ZERO-1 and NJPW dates taking precedent for him.

I'm like the biggest ROH 2002-2006 simp, maybe have rewatched it like over 5 times over the past 15 years and AJ was absolutely a force early on and I'd put him on a rung below that Daniels, Dragon, Punk, Joe tier. But to say he was a guest is insane.

For Reference:
February 2002 to April of 2004 (when TNA restricted talent)

# of ROH Dates:
Aj Styles: 29
Christopher Daniels: 29
Low-Ki: 18
American Dragon: 16

EDIT: I also now realize I am arguing on the side of "I Wonder", I can assure you these things can be mutually exclusive to each other,