WWE star AJ Styles recently spoke with Sports Illustrated on a number of topics including how his run in NJPW about a decade ago changed everything for his current career.
Styles said, “The creative changed everything for me. If I were bringing somebody over to be in my company, the last thing I would do is have them win the heavyweight Championship as soon as they got there, but that’s what they did, and it worked, it put me on the map immediately.”
“New Japan was getting hot, real hot, and that’s when I got there. I got to be in the ring with incredible talent like Shinsuke Nakamura, Kazuchika Okada and Hiroshi Tanahashi, those guys, they’re big time and there were no handcuffs, whatever I wanted to say or do, I could.”
“When I heard Shinsuke was leaving, he didn’t even know I knew, nobody knew, I’ll put it like that and that’s when I spoke about it with Gallows and Anderson and we all decided to leave.”
