AJ Styles on Why He Thinks NIL Women Progress Faster Than Men In WWE, Recent Matches He Helped Produce in WWE and His Belief He Is Producing Main Event at NXT Heatwave 2026, Ilja Dragunov’s WWE Departure, & More

A recent episode of The AJ Styles Show podcast featured WWE Hall of Famer and co-host AJ Styles giving his thoughts about why he believes women NIL talents progress faster than men NIL talents in WWE.

“I think you’re going to find homegrown more often on the women’s side than the male side. From my experience…I am biased when it comes to the independents. I know what it’s like to be there and bust your tail just to get noticed. I am very biased, and I think they are a lot better than perceived. The women, when it comes to homegrown talent who come straight from college athletics to the wrestling world, they seem to get it a little quicker than the males. It’s quite the opposite in the independents, where the guys seem to get it a lot quicker. I don’t know why that is, but I’ve tried to figure this out myself. I don’t know if it’s an ego thing where the independents, we know what wrestling looks like because we’ve watched it, enjoyed it, have an idea of how we sell and what it looks like, while the athlete has dedicated their life to that position and sport. To be a D1 athlete, it takes an ego. That ego is still in their system by the time they get to WWE, and we have to find a way to get that out as quickly as possible. Even I wrestled in college, and to a point, I was like, ‘I’m a wrestler. I don’t know about that entertainment stuff.’ Even I had to figure that out. I think that’s what slows the guys down in that process. I could be wrong. I’m just trying to put two and two together.”

Styles also gave his thoughts about him being the producer for the Shiloh Hill vs. Jackson Drake match at the August 18th WWE NXT show.

“I had Shiloh (Hill) and Jackson Drake. They had a really good match. I was really happy with how it came out.”

In response to co-host Tony Giles stating that he has been a fan of It’s Gal on WWE EVOLVE, Styles revealed that he had recently produced a match for Gal in WWE EVOLVE.

“It’s Gal. I produced for his match on EVOLVE.”

Styles also gave his thoughts about him currently believing he will be producing the main event match at WWE’s upcoming NXT Heatwave 2026 event.

“I know about this four-way, and I’m thinking that I’m going to have the opportunity, I think, to help produce this. It’s kind of exciting. It’s going to be a big match.”

Styles also gave his thoughts about Ilja Dragunov’s recent departure from WWE.

“I don’t know anything about it. I know that I’m very sad about the situation. I enjoy his work, very much. I don’t know what’s going on. I can’t say much about it. You’d think I know, I work for the company, but my place is in the coaching and little things to hopefully make WWE better and build relationships with younger talents. I don’t know what’s going on, I just know, holy crap. I’ll be the first one to tell you, I thought the guy was awesome,” he said.

In response to co-host Giles praising Dragunov’s character and in-ring work in WWE, Styles responded stating:

“It seems like that’s all the things that you want. We’re going to have to wait and see what he says about the situation. Then, we’ll all know the truth. We can speculate what this is, but the truth is, we don’t know.”

Transcript h/t: Fightful.com 1, 2, & 3