AJ Styles Looks Back At His TNA Exit, Recalls Nearly Leaving In 2008

AJ Styles exited TNA in 2014, and he recently looked back at his reasons for leaving the company at the time. Styles spoke about his exit in his appearance on Insight With Chris Van Vliet and you can see highlights below (h/t to Wrestling Inc):

On the company having money problems at the time: “They hired Hulk Hogan, Eric Bischoff, and I believe Eric was trying to do the right thing to see where we’re at as far as getting people–more eyes on us, that we’re growing, and unfortunately it didn’t work out the way it was supposed to. We lost a lot of money… They expected me to take a pay cut. They didn’t say the dates are not going to be as many, they didn’t say that either… Same amount of travel and everything, and so it was one of those things I was like ‘man this ain’t right.’ On principle alone, I can’t be here anymore.”

On nearly leaving TNA in 2008: “It was a big meeting, and Dixie came out and basically said something to the fact like ‘if you don’t want to be here, we’ll let you go.’ I looked over at Christian [Cage] to see what he was going to do…I was watching him because I looked up to Christian. He’s amazing too, this guy’s like a ring general for sure, and I was watching him to see if he got up, because if he had gotten up…I don’t know if she expected us to leave but I kind of felt like she was saying ‘you can go now.’ I was seriously–if he would have got up I would have got up too, and hopefully he would have got me in the WWE or something.”