AJ Styles on Balor Club, “Redneck Rookie”, WWE Debut, & WWE Comics

IGN held a recent interview with AJ Styles discussing a variety of wrestling related topics including the reunion of the Balor Club, possibly joining the Balor Club in the future, being called a “Redneck Rookie” in the WWE, thoughts on his WWE debut, and writing his first ever comic book story.

On the topic of the “Balor Club” reuniting Finn Balor, Karl Anderson, and Luke Gallows together, Styles stated he did not have strong feelings towards the group but felt their reunion was very special considering their past history together.

“It is what it is, I guess, as far as the way things are supposed to happen. Even though I had my own reunion with them shortly after I arrived, and its in the story, I’m not even with those guys right now. They’re on RAW and I’m on SmackDown and I’m kind of doing my own thing by myself. But those three guys being together is something special because, truth be told, those were the three guys who were originally together.”

On the topic of possibly joining the “Balor Club” in the future, Styles hinted he would be open to the idea of joining if the opportunity presented itself in the future.

“If I could look into the future or try to predict things. I’d like to think that maybe we can all be together doing something. At some point. But you never know where things are going to lead, but right now I’m very interested in what I’m seeing.”

On the topic of being called the “Redneck Rookie” in the WWE, Styles felt disrespected at being labeled a “rookie” since it diminished his career accomplishments. He also mentioned at working hard to get that perspective squashed quickly within the company.

“I was like ‘Uh, I’ve been doing this for 16 years. I’m not a rookie and I’m not even the age a rookie would be coming into anything. So yeah, I kind of tried to squash that as quickly as I could.”

On the topic of his WWE debut at 2015’s Royal Rumble event, Styles stated he loved the moment although he never envisioned how quickly he would end up rising as a star in the company.

“I don’t think anybody, including myself, could have envisioned things turning out like this for me. Or envisioned what was going to happen. Just walking through that curtain and having people going nuts the way they did was great on its own. And now to enjoy two more big Royal Rumble pay-per-views after that, as champion, is just really exciting.”

On the topic of writing his first WWE comic book story, Styles praised comic writer Michael Kingston for being very helpful towards the work done for his WWE comic book.

“Nobody knows me better than me, obviously. For those who haven’t had a chance to look at his work, the Headlocked comic series he does is great. It’s just tremendous stuff, the way he puts everything together. The pictures and stories are just amazing. If you’re going to get advice and work alongside someone on something like this, there’s no one better.”