AJ Styles WWE debut at the 2016 Royal Rumble was incredible. He entered at number 3 to the roar of the crowd and the PHENOMENAL era began in the WWE. Aj Styles had worked for a wide variety of promotions before finally making it into the WWE. AJ Styles talks in a recent interview on the Sam Roberts Wrestling Podcast about a wide variety of topics. One of those included him being willing to change his name when he made the jump to the WWE.
Here is what he said regarding a name change:
“‘Oh, he’s BJ Smiles!’, like I’m a wrestler from Fire Pro Wrestling. I literally was like, ‘you know what, man? I’ll do whatever you guys want to do. Sure, I’d like to keep my name, but who wouldn’t? But that’s not going to stop me from going to the WWE. I want to do what’s best for my family and my career, so if it works out, it works out [and] if it doesn’t, it doesn’t.’ A lot of prayer went to this stuff, but everything worked out the way that it should’ve and they knew, I mean, it just goes to show how smart they are as well, because when the word ‘phenomenal’ popped on that screen [during his debut], it was like, that was the right thing to do.” (Source: Sam Roberts Wrestling Podcast, h/t WrestlingInc).
Really happy that they allowed AJ Styles to keep his name when he joined the WWE. I don’t know if it would have been the same if he was called something else. AJ was widely regarded as one of the best wrestlers in the world before joining the company and his name was worth a lot. Really happy that things have worked out for him. He has made a huge impact on the WWE already and will take on Roman Reigns for the WWE Heavyweight Championship in a couple months at WWE Payback. AJ Styles WWE career has been a success so far in it’s short time!
