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Rocky Romero Recalls The Consequences Of AJ Styles’ Departure From NJPW
Talking recently with Bobby Fish on The Undisputed Podcast, Rocky Romero recounted his recollection of when AJ Styles left NJPW to pursue a career with WWE (per Wrestling Inc). Styles’ departure was very shortly followed by Doc Gallows and Karl Anderson as well, leaving a significant gap in the NJPW roster. You can find a few highlights and listen to the complete episode below.
On how he found out the three wrestlers were leaving NJPW: “This was a day before the Tokyo Dome, and I knew what was going to happen because … Anderson and Gallows, we’re really tight, and they had to kind of tell me the night before ‘Hey, we’re going to talk to the boss man and let him know that we’re out of here, and AJ’s going, and we’re going right after him’ … so we’re all trying to make the match, but I remember the Bucks and I were, like, invested in these two.”
On Gedo’s reaction to the news: “We’re trying … like, really trying to watch what was going to happen in this whole conversation … when they broke the news to Gedo that they were leaving, that they were on their way out. So we’re kind of watching the whole thing, and that was the day we saw … I literally saw Gedo go ‘Oh shit, you guys are leaving, AJ’s leaving, oh man.’ He’s totally feeling it, then he scans the room, and he just sees Kenny (Omega) and then it’s like ‘Okay, AJ’s out.’ You could just see it in his face. He just locked eyes on Kenny and he’s like ‘Kenny’s the guy now.’ It kind of went down all at the same time, it was pretty cool.”
