AJ Styles’ days in the WWE, and in pro wrestling in general, are numbered.
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The former multi-time WWE Champion and reigning United States Champion has stated on multiple occasions that his current WWE contract, which he signed in March, will be his latest. He emphasized that once again while appearing on a recent episode of the Chasing Glory With Lilian Garcia podcast alongside Luke Gallows and Karl Anderson.
“… I can tell you that the contract that I signed, here in the WWE, is my last,” Styles said. “This is it for me. This is where I’m going to end my career no matter what happens. I got to, you know? I want to be there for my kids.”
Making his wrestling debut in 1998 under the tutelage of Rick Michaels, Styles first rose to prominence while spending more than a decade in TNA Impact Wrestling. After successful runs in both Ring of Honor and New Japan Pro Wrestling, the latter of which resulted in two runs as IWGP Heavyweight Champion, Styles finally joined the WWE in 2016. In the past three years he’s held the WWE Championship a combined 511 days and won the US title for the third time at Extreme Rules.
Back on July 1 Styles turned heel be realigning himself with Gallows and Anderson to reunite The Club, now going by The O.C. Styles said elsewhere in the interview with Garcia that he had been pushing for the idea of working with Gallows and Anderson for quite some time, as the latter two were miserable for how little they were being used on the main roster over the past couple of years. Within weeks of their reunion, the duo were once again Raw tag team champions.
During the interview the trio explained why they changed the name of their faction.
“Bullet Club is owned by New Japan. ‘The Club’ wasn’t really, it didn’t do much,” Anderson said.
“We didn’t have a fitting end to it,” Gallows said. “So we wanted something new, something fresh. We changed the look, the colors, all that a little bit.”
“Just go in a different direction but still be us,” Anderson added.
Styles has successfully (though controversially) retained the United States Championship twice in the past few weeks against Braun Strowman. He’ll have to defend the title again at Clash of Champions on Sept. 15, but his opponent has not been announced.
