Triple H Reveals Conversation With AJ Styles Following In-Ring Retirement

WWE Chief Content Officer Paul “Triple H” Levesque opened up about his conversations with AJ Styles after the latter’s in-ring retirement during a recent appearance on Cody Rhodes’ What Do You Wanna Talk About? podcast.

Styles wrestled his final match at this year’s Royal Rumble Premium Live Event, losing to Gunther in a match that he needed to win to save his career. Since then, Styles has revealed during media interactions his desire to contribute to the business in other forms. Triple H also alluded to the same following AJ Styles’ final match at the Royal Rumble.

During the conversation with Cody Rhodes, Triple H revealed that AJ wanted to be done with the in-ring stuff even before his match with Gunther in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. The Game revealed that Styles attended creative and production meetings following his retirement, but he realized that those positions weren’t ideal for him.

Instead, he wanted to take young talents under his wing and nurture them. Here’s what Triple H said about AJ Styles:

“At the end, AJ was like, ‘I don’t want to be done with the business. I want to be done wrestling.’ And I don’t think I’m betraying a confidence here. But even in his last match, he was telling me like, ‘I know I’m done because I was out there in that last match thinking like, ‘Let’s just get it over with; I just want to get to the end.’ He wants to participate in the business, right? But being an agent or a producer, it’s a different world.

Being in what we do, there’s different fits for different people. AJ came in, he sat on some creative meetings, and he sat in on some production meetings. And I think he realized, like, ‘The writing thing’s not for me; the producer thing, I don’t think, is for me. What I really like is getting to these young kids and spotting talent and then trying to help fan the flames of the little spark that’s there and try to make them into something more, the developmental side of it.’ So, great, let’s utilize them in that and grab those talents there.”

Styles has since signed a new contract with WWE, and he is set to be inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame later this month.

Please credit What Do You Wanna Talk About? With Cody Rhodes podcast and give an H/T to 411Mania for the transcription if you take quotes from this article.