Triple H has revealed that AJ Styes was eager to retire by the end of his in-ring run, and explained the various backstage roles Styles trialed before taking on his current role.

“The Game” spoke to Cody Rhodes on the “What Do You Want To Talk About” podcast, where he disclosed that Styles was keen to pull the curtains down on his career quickly. 

“So AJ Styles just retired. So towards the end, AJ was like, ‘I don’t know, I want to just be done with the business. I want to be done wrestling.’ And I don’t think I’m betraying your confidence here, but even in his last match, he was telling me like, ‘I so know I’m done because like I was out there in that last match thinking like, let’s just get over with, I just want to get to the end,'” said Triple H. 

Styles has walked away from the in-ring aspect of the business, but he is still keen to be a part of pro wrestling. While the producer role, which he tried, didn’t appeal to him, the prospect of scouting young stars is something that interested him.

“But he wants to participate in the business. But being an agent or a producer, it’s a different world. Being in what we do, there’s different fits for different people. AJ came in, he sat in on some creative meetings. He sat in on some, you know, production meetings. I think he realized like the writing thing’s not for me. Producer thing, I don’t think is for me. What I really like is getting to these young kids and spotting talent and then trying to help, you know, fan the flames of the little spark that’s there and try to make them into something more the developmental side of it. So, great. Let’s utilize him in that, great and grab those talents there,” explained Triple H.

He believes that many wrestlers want to walk away from the business after their in-ring retirement, as they don’t want to do the travel and other things associated with the pro wrestling industry.

WWE legend JBL is happy to see Chris Jericho return to AEW television and has urged his former colleague to keep wrestling.

Numerous reports suggested that Jericho could move to WWE, but he eventually chose to re-sign with AEW. JBL, on his appearance on “Something To Wrestle,” backed Jericho to do things he enjoys and supported his decision to stay with AEW.

“You know, when you’re younger, you do stuff for money reasons. And there’s nothing wrong with that. You know, sometimes you do stuff and you end up in a gimmick. You end up in a character. You end up in a place that you probably wouldn’t choose to be in. When you get older and you’ve taken care of your money like Chris Jericho has, you have the options, and the options are awesome and Chris now is just gonna do stuff that’s very enjoyable to him and I greatly admire that,” he said. “I think what he’s going to do there is gonna be fantastic. Chris always has a new look, Chris always has new stuff that he’s doing. I got a lot of admiration for Chris. I think it’s going to be a heck of a run.”

There’s been talk that Jericho may have had a retirement tour if he were to join WWE, and one of the wrestlers he would have potentially faced is GUNTHER, who has already retired two legends — John Cena and AJ Styles. JBL isn’t in favor of that idea, arguing that Jericho is still in good shape and can continue to wrestle.

“Why end your career? You know, Jericho is still apparently very healthy. He’s still on top of his game. He still looks great. To me, there’s no reason to end a career. There’s no reason to have a retirement tour; have a tour. But if you want to come back again, come back again. There’s no reason not to.”

JBL added that there are other wrestlers in WWE aside from GUNTHER who could have been opponents for Jericho, which includes names like Brock Lesnar, Seth Rollins, Roman Reigns, and CM Punk.