AJ Styles’ legendary WWE career came to a heartbreaking end at the 2026 Royal Rumble in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, as The Phenomenal One tapped out to Gunther in a retirement stipulation match, The loss means Styles must officially retire from WWE competition, per the terms of the match.
On Friday, WWE released a farewell tour vlog on its official YouTube channel featuring Styles’ final run with the company. In the video The Phenomenal One explained that he was originally going to retire at WrestleMania. However, he instead decided to retire at the Royal Rumble as it was the same pay-per-view where he made his WWE debut.
“You know, everybody wants to retire at WrestleMania, right? The biggest show of the year that we do. And I was gonna do exactly that, but I just came back from an injury that I was supposed to have to, you know, it was supposed to retire me, because of the injury it retires most. But once I got healed up and was comfortable enough, you know, 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. Hopefully at the end of this match I stand up on my own two feet, I throw up the P1 that’s on my gloves one more time, I walk.”
WWE will pay tribute to AJ’s career on the February 23 edition of Raw.
WWE’s video is available below.
