AJ Styles Confirms His Shoulder Injury, Says He'll Be Back for WrestleMania 36

AJ Styles appeared on his Mixer account on Wednesday night, and started off his video by addressing the elephant in the room regarding his shoulder injury. The former WWE Champion had to be quickly removed from Sunday night's Royal Rumble match after he landed awkwardly while taking a Spear from Edge. Reports quickly came out that it was a separated shoulder, which Styles confirmed to be accurate. He then said he only blames himself for how the injury happened, and is confident he'll be back in action sooner than later.

"Just so everything's clear, Edge did nothing, absolutely 100 percent nothing, wrong," Styles said. "His move, his spear, everything he did was perfect. And if there's any blame put on anybody about what I'm dealing with my shoulder, it's me, 100 percent me. I was 'over-brothered' as they say, and I just went crazy with my bump there. The only problem with flipping over the way I did was the first thing to hit was my left shoulder.

"I thought I had dislocated my shoulder, they wanted to get me out of there right away," he added before explaining how he communicated with everyone else to get him out of the match as soon as possible.

"I don't expect to be out very long," he said. "I'm assuming, and I'm betting on myself to be back before they think that I'm ready."

When the subject of being at WrestleMania 36 came up, he said, "I'm not missing WrestleMania. I'll scratch and claw my way there."

With Styles gone, Karl Anderson and Luke Gallows wound up on the losing end of a handicap squash match against Drew McIntyre on Monday Night Raw. Later that same night Edge made his triumphant return to the Raw brand, only to get betrayed by Randy Orton and nailed with an RKO and a Con-Chair-To.

At age 42, Styles is one of the most decorated wrestlers working in the business today with multiple world championship runs in WWE, New Japan and (TNA) Impact Wrestling. He signed a new contract extension with WWE in 2019, and confirmed later in the year that it would be his last in the business.

"... I can tell you that the contract that I signed, here in the WWE, is my last," Styles said while on the Chasing Glory With Lilian Garcia podcast. "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."