Before a few months off television, AJ Styles pulled a Mark Henry to kickstart his feud with WWE champion Cody Rhodes.
The injury he suffered in his return to TV last Friday (Oct. 4) on SmackDown may have derailed his real retirement angle, at least if you choose to believe Wrestling Observer’s Dave Meltzer.
In the latest Wrestling Observer Newsletter, Meltzer confirms an earlier report that Styles was selling a storyline injury in his match with Carmelo Hayes when he suffered the real one. That’s said to a mid-foot ligament sprain, the severity of which is still unknown pending the results of an MRI.
Styles was said to be “pretty mad about the whole thing”. Other than the obvious reasons, per Meltzer that’s because AJ was about “to start a storyline where this would be his farewell tour”. It’s not specified if that would lead to the 47-year-old Styles actually retiring this time, but it’s something he’s been talking about since earlier this year. It would also add another layer to the moment The Phenomenal One shared with Rhodes after a house show match last month in their home state of Georgia.
We’ll see what happens when AJ gets back from his foot injury, and hope that MRI reveals he can come back soon and get back to whatever he had planned before fate stepped in last Friday.
