For many years AJ Styles was considered to be the face of TNA, and he has since gone on to become one of the top stars in WWE. The Phenomenal One isn’t often associated with WCW, but he did have a brief run with the company before it went under.
In 2001 WCW was going through some big changes and Eric Bischoff was hoping to purchase the company. Ultimately that didn’t end up happening as WWE purchased WCW, but Eric had some ideas regarding how he planned to relaunch the brand.
During a recent episode of his 83 Weeks podcast Eric Bischoff indicated that he wanted to use AJ Styles if his plans moved forward and The Phenomenal One would have been part of the WCW cruiserweight division.
“Yeah, I would’ve,” Bischoff said. “I’ll be honest, I didn’t have my eye on AJ Styles at the time he was in WCW. So, I can’t tell you that I analyzed him and watched him and thought he was gonna be a great fit for the cruiserweight division.” “I wanted to bring in more cruiserweight-type guys,”
I wanted to bring more of that style in. Jimmy Yang came in, along with Shannon Moore and some of the other guys that were part of that late cruiserweight recruitment, and I liked Jimmy. Jimmy was a good friend of my son, Garett. I think they went to school together. So, I was a big fan of Jimmy Yang’s. I certainly would’ve kept him around, and I certainly would’ve kept AJ Styles around, and built on the cruiserweight division.”
