Sami Zayn Recalls His First ‘Name’ Match With AJ Styles: He Knocked Me Out Actually

Sami Zayn recalls his first meeting with AJ Styles and how he happened to knock him out in the bout.

At the 2026 Royal Rumble event earlier this year, Styles would put his WWE career on the line during a bout with Gunther, coming up short and leading to his retirement from WWE.

While speaking in a new video on WWE’s YouTube channel, Sami Zayn thanked AJ, recalling the first time they squared off.

“First of all, when I was first training, I was watching his tapes, and he was only a couple of years ahead of me, but he was already making a splash really quick. So I was studying his tapes, and the first name guy that I ever got to wrestle was AJ Styles. It was kind of a dream match for me. So this is like two years into my career, and he knocked me out, actually. I came to, and he was getting ready to leave the building, and I remember desperately like, ‘can we keep in touch? Can I have your email address?’ I was just so .. ya know? He looked at me, and I thought he was blowing me off. He goes, ‘we’ll see each other again. Don’t worry.’ It turned out it would be true. AJ, what to say, buddy? I’ve been really weirdly, disproportionately emotional about the thought of you leaving. I don’t know. It’s doing something to me, man. It’s doing more than I thought it was going to do. It’s just so hard to believe. But man, you’ve been a good dude as long as I’ve known you. You’ve been a good friend. I’m trying not to get too bummed out here, but I’m really gonna miss you, man and thank you for everything. Yeah, thank you for everything, not just for me, but for what you’ve done in the business. We just had a lot of great memories together. You wouldn’t want me to get emotional. Because it’ll make you emotional. So we won’t do that now. But I’ll miss you.”

Elsewhere in the same video, Randy Orton also thanked AJ for the memories both inside and outside of the ring. You can read more about that here.

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