AJ Styles Comments on He Originally Planned To Retire At WrestleMania 41 & Reason For Changing His Mind
WWE recently released a new vlog featuring AJ Styles backstage at this past January’s Royal Rumble 2026 event in Saudi Arabia. One of the topics discussed included Styles’ thoughts about how he originally planned to retire at last year’s WrestleMania 41 event but a foot injury caused him to change his mind.
“Everybody wants to retire at WrestleMania, the biggest show of the year that we do. I was going to do exactly that, but I just came back from an injury that was supposed to retire me. It retires most. Once I got healed up and was comfortable enough running and doing what I need to do to be AJ Styles, it just didn’t feel right to come back for two months just to retire. It didn’t seem right and I thought, what a way to be able to leave on the pay-per-view where you debuted. Hopefully, at the end of this match, I stand up on my own two feet and I throw up the P1 that is on my gloves one more time, and I walk.”
Transcript h/t: Fightful.com
NOAH Talent Ulka Sasaki Announces Excursion to NXT
As noted before, Pro Wrestling NOAH talent Ulka Sasaki announced at NOAH’s New Year Reboot 2026 event this past January that he will be going on an excursion to the United States.
Sasaki released a new video on his official YouTube channel announcing that he has recently arrived in the United States and will be on excursion for WWE’s NXT brand.
Sasaki stated that he will begin his training at WWE’s Performance Center once he completes and passes his medical work.
ESPN Confirms Airing of Royal Rumble 2026 Special Presentation on Feb. 22nd
As noted before, ESPN was scheduled to be airing a condensed version of this past January’s WWE Royal Rumble 2026 event on February 22nd on their network. This condensed version was expected to have a runtime of three hours.
ESPN confirmed earlier today on Twitter that they will be airing a “special presentation” of WWE’s Royal Rumble 2026 event on February 22nd starting at 8PM EST on their network.
“On the road to ESPN’s 1st @WrestleMania
Sunday, catch a special presentation of the 2026 #RoyalRumble ⭐️ 8p ET | ESPN”
On the road to ESPN's 1st @WrestleMania
— ESPN PR (@ESPNPR) February 20, 2026
Sunday, catch a special presentation of the 2026 #RoyalRumble⁰⁰⭐️ 8p ET | ESPN pic.twitter.com/tixSYQgte0
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