AJ Styles Talks John Cena On The Indie Scene, Rusev Shares Royal Rumble Script

Last week on Talking Smack AJ Styles said that John Cena wouldn’t last two seconds on the independent scene. Styles knows a thing or two about working the independents, as he did it for many years and he knows that it’s not easy.

The WWE Champion recently spoke to Yahoo! Sports to promote the Royal Rumble, and he talked about what it takes to make it in the independents.

“Let’s talk about that. The independent scene is really hard. When I say that, it’s because you may be the guy coming in from a different state that no one knows. So, how are you going to have people react? A lot of that has to take place through stuff they haven’t seen before and stuff they didn’t expect in the ring. That takes a lot of athletic ability to get eyes on you and to pay attention sometimes. Every type of wrestling you can think of, you need to adapt to this guy who might only do lucha stuff or this guy might be 6-foot-8, so we know he’s not doing that. All that stuff has to happen.”

John Cena’s path to the top of the industry was very different, as he’s been one of WWE’s biggest stars for well over a decade now. Although it’s impossible to say whether or not John Cena would have been successful on the independent scene, AJ Styles noted that John’s look definitely would have turned some heads.

“But I say that [to say] how John Cena would do, nobody is really going to know. But I would venture to say as a nobody coming in, eyes would be on John Cena based on his look alone. He’s a tank. He’s a jacked-up man. That’s the first thing people would see, so he would get a reaction on the way he looks. Now, what happens in the ring won’t be as easy because the whole “You Can’t See Me” thing, people aren’t going to go and do that with him because people haven’t seen him before. There’s a lot that goes into the independents that a lot of people don’t understand. Who’s to say whether John would have done well or done terrible in the indies. How will we ever know? We won’t.”

Rusev is set to compete in the 30 man Royal Rumble match on Sunday, and the former United States Champion took to Twitter ahead of the show to joke around with fans. Rusev posted a photo of the “script” for the Royal Rumble showing that he’s slated to win.