AJ Styles put his career on the line when he faced off against Gunther at the Royal Rumble back in January, and The Ring General ultimately retired AJ when he put The Phenomenal One to sleep. Later in the night Gunther went on to enter the Royal Rumble match, which is something that AJ apparently wasn’t thrilled about.
While talking about his last days as an in-ring competitor with WWE on Insight with Chris Van Vliet, AJ Styles noted that he was in a weird state of mind. He also revealed that he questioned why Gunther was entering the Royal Rumble shortly after retiring him.
“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.”
AJ Styles also discussed the possibility of him returning to the ring someday, and you can get more on that here.