WWE Hall of Famer Booker T discussed AJ Styles’ retirement match from WWE at the Royal Rumble PLE, where he lost to GUNTHER, in a recent episode of his Hall of Fame podcast.
Booker T said, “I didn’t see it coming. I didn’t, I thought they would throw a swerve at me. I guess with being in Saudi, I guess they perhaps felt we needed definitive outcomes for each match. That’s the only thing I can see as far as they go. I guess, they went there so they had to go ahead and go there. The one thing that kind of like leave the door open, is AJ didn’t leave his gloves in the ring. And if you’re retired, if you know it’s over, you’re gonna leave those gloves in the ring. So therefore, I think the door was left open, slightly anyway, for AJ to still be able to do something, even if it’s not in the WWE. I could be wrong.”
On his TNA tenure:
“Oh I just know he did a lot for TNA. And you know what? I think if I had a chance to pay homage to WCW, if I had a chance to before it was all over with? I think I probably would have wanted to do that. And go back and wrap it up perhaps in a WCW ring. Just because, that’s what made me. That’s what really put me on the map. And that’s where I was really, really given a chance to go out there and, you know, do my thing. So I think that’s the only reason.”
On his belief Styles will wrestle again:
“And on top of that, I do think we’re going to see AJ Styles back inside the squared circle again. You could quote me on that when it happens, it’s going to happen 100%.”
You can check out the complete podcast in the video below.
(H/T to 411Mania.com for transcribing the above quotes)
