AJ Styles Thinks He Made Triple H Feel Awful When He Learned GUNTHER Would Be Competing In Royal Rumble After Retiring Styles

A story about AJ Styles’ retirement.

There’s a new interview with AJ Styles that was conducted by Chris Van Vliet. Looking back on Styles’ retirement match against GUNTHER at the 2026 Royal Rumble Premium Live Event, Styles stated that he thinks he made WWE Chief Content Officer Paul ‘Triple’ Levesque feel bad after learning that Styles’ final opponent, GUNTHER, would be competing in the men’s Rumble after retiring Styles.

“I just was questioning everything. A normal, sane AJ Styles would not question this; it would just be what it is. Even the moment where I found out GUNTHER was in the Royal Rumble, and I think that it already been explained that he was in the Royal Rumble, and that I got this match, but I was like, ‘What the freak?’ I think I made Triple H feel awful about, oh man, I didn’t think about that. When reality is, nobody thought about that; nobody did, nobody cared, even when GUNTHER came out at the Royal Rumble and got beat. In fact, it should have made more sense that he got beat because he was in the ring with AJ Styles. He got exhausted in that match; of course he’s not going to win the Royal Rumble. So I just got weird man. So, my apologies to everyone who I acted that way — and I was just in a weird state of mind.” 

Styles is now helping with the WWE I.D. program, and he’s produced matches for the EVOLVE show.