There’s been a lot of talk about retirements in wrestling recently as John Cena is retiring later this week and AJ Styles has confirmed that he’ll be retiring in 2026. With AJ set to retire next year many have wondered if he could also round out his career with a potential retirement tour.
John Cena noted on Insight with Chris Van Vliet that he had asked AJ Styles about a potential retirement tour, and The Phenomenal One indicated that he has already overstayed his welcome from a physical standpoint.
“AJ Styles, such a great dude. I got to talk to him a little bit while we were locked in our program this year,” Cena said. “And I’m like, ‘Man, AJ, there’s a lot of people who really admire you out there. I know you’re thinking of calling it quits soon. Do you think that there’s any possibility you would try to do something like this? Because I honestly think people would pay to see you one last time.’
“He’s literally tying his shoes. He turns to me and goes, ‘Man, I’m 48.’ And as soon as the words left his mouth, he didn’t have to say anything else. It’s something about that late 40s, man, where he’s like, ‘I’m already overstaying my physical welcome. They just don’t see it. Because they don’t see what goes into prep, cooldown, recovery. I’m already riding that razor’s edge. You can’t tell.’ He still looks great, still does some great stuff. But he can’t stay another second because he doesn’t want to put out a product that isn’t AJ Styles.
“And the same goes for me. Like, yeah, this is why I’m going, because I can still give you what you want. I don’t want to walk away when I can’t. When people are like, ‘Man, I wish it had gone two years ago.’ We got one date left and we’ve done some entertaining stuff this year. And in doing so, I’ve used every effing trick I got in the book, but we made it.”
H/T F4Wonline.com