In a new documentary covering the Slammiversary pay-per-view, WWE superstar AJ Styles has reflected on his emotional return to TNA Wrestling.
AJ Styles on why his TNA return at Slammiversary was the perfect night for him: “Tonight was a perfect night for me. Uh it was an opportunity for me to come and see the fans face to face, something I haven’t done in a really long time. And WWE said, ‘Yeah, sure. Go do that.’ You don’t see that every day. So the opportunity just to come and visit and share some time with them was is pretty amazing. Man, I hope there’s something special as far as a match goes, but I can’t promise that. I can’t promise you tomorrow what’s going to happen to me. I can tell you this. I was uh very excited. Even I had the butterflies tonight.”
On why TNA Wrestling was like his first love: “People were excited to see AJ Style, the same guy that they saw how many years ago? I don’t even know, but it was over a decade now. To come back and be in that ring, it’s special, dude. It’s always going to be special. It’s like you’re the first girl you’ve ever loved, right? Like, she’s always going to be special to you. This was my first love. I would have been here forever had things not went the way that it did. But things needed to go the way that they should because I’m right where God wanted me tonight. So, I’m very blessed, very thankful to be able to come here tonight. And uh Leon is a special kid, man. Enjoy him. He’s different, man. And he’s incredible. He’s way more talented than most of us could ever be, I wish him nothing but the best. This is just the start of an amazing career for him.”
Styles on a time when TNA forgot where it came from: “There’s a time where they forgot where they they came from and by by no means is it the same people that own it today. They wanted to be something different than rather than something who we were, you know, and at the end of the day it cost them. And if we just stayed on the path, man, who knows where we’d be right now. And so it’s different. But I’m glad to see that how everybody’s pulling for that was the first time in a long time I’ve seen the whole company watching the same match because they were so interested in what’s going to happen. That’s awesome. They’re pulling for each other. You want that. You don’t have to worry about people stabbing each other in the back to get to the top. No, no, no. They want you to be there. They want to see everybody there. They want to see everybody have a great match. That’s how you become a successful company. That’s what it takes. As long as that’s available and ready and people can see it, man, TNA is going to grow.”
