Kemo
06-06-2017, 09:24 PM
As we’ve previously noted, former WWE Champion AJ Styles was recently a guest on Rock 100.5’s Bailey And Southside during SmackDown Live’s recent trip to his hometown of Atlanta, Georgia. You can check out some more highlights from Styles’ appearance here below:
Initially wanting to be a luchador by the name of “Velocity”:
“I wanted to wear a mask! I loved those [luchadors]. I’m so glad that didn’t happen.” Styles continued, “I wanted to wear a mask and call myself ‘Velocity’. What a terrible name.”
Getting the ‘Styles’ name given to him by a random promoter and it stuck – but he wasn’t a fan of it:
“I didn’t have a name. Everybody always called me ‘AJ’ anyway, so I stuck with AJ. And then, [the promoter] is like, ‘yeah, you’re tagging with Damien Still. We need a last name. Styles! Go!’ That’s it. That’s how the name [came] about. AJ Styles. I hated it. I hated Styles for a really long time.”
Being willing to change his ring name once he arrived at WWE:
“[WWE] didn’t say anything about changing it. I just assumed it would probably happen, but a year prior, maybe a couple of months prior, Samoa Joe had went to NXT and they didn’t change his name, so I thought, ‘well, maybe there’s a chance’. But, at the same time, I was like, ‘ah, I don’t care what they call me, Velocity, if you want to call me that, whatever.’ But I’m glad they stuck with AJ Styles and it actually worked out for everybody.”
Initially wanting to be a luchador by the name of “Velocity”:
“I wanted to wear a mask! I loved those [luchadors]. I’m so glad that didn’t happen.” Styles continued, “I wanted to wear a mask and call myself ‘Velocity’. What a terrible name.”
Getting the ‘Styles’ name given to him by a random promoter and it stuck – but he wasn’t a fan of it:
“I didn’t have a name. Everybody always called me ‘AJ’ anyway, so I stuck with AJ. And then, [the promoter] is like, ‘yeah, you’re tagging with Damien Still. We need a last name. Styles! Go!’ That’s it. That’s how the name [came] about. AJ Styles. I hated it. I hated Styles for a really long time.”
Being willing to change his ring name once he arrived at WWE:
“[WWE] didn’t say anything about changing it. I just assumed it would probably happen, but a year prior, maybe a couple of months prior, Samoa Joe had went to NXT and they didn’t change his name, so I thought, ‘well, maybe there’s a chance’. But, at the same time, I was like, ‘ah, I don’t care what they call me, Velocity, if you want to call me that, whatever.’ But I’m glad they stuck with AJ Styles and it actually worked out for everybody.”