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During his latest Twitch stream, AJ Styles confirmed that he did have talks with AEW last year regarding potentially joining the promotion.
Styles explained that it was just regular business as his WWE contract was expiring and he engaged in talks with All Elite Wrestling which never got to the phase wherein they discussed money.
Styles noted that The Young Bucks are his good friends, and they never really spoke about the financial aspect of the deal. They only talked about the angle that could get AJ Styles in AEW.
"Yeah, there were talks. Look, it's a business. My contract in WWE was going to expire, and there were talks happening.
"The Bucks are my buddies. We never discussed money or anything, but there were talks about coming in. Again, it's all business." H/t WrestlingInc
The original plan for AJ Styles' AEW debut
Matt Jackson had revealed the original plans for AJ Styles' AEW debut during a recent appearance on the Talk N' Shop Patreon podcast. The pitched plan was for AJ Styles, Luke Gallows and Karl Anderson to debut on the very first episode of AEW Dynamite.
"People don't realize that when we were pitching to have you guys come in, it wasn't just going to be the two of you, it was going to be another person who I won't name, but another Bullet Club person who you may not want to talk about."
AJ Styles ended up re-signing with the WWE, and the AEW plan never became a reality. It was, however, noted by Matt Jackson that AJ Styes being in contact with AEW helped the Phenomenal One get a great offer from the WWE.
"When we were originally going to do Dynamite, we were going to debut at Madison Square Garden. After the match, three of you, not just the two of you, the three of you were going to jump the guardrail, and we were going to have like a Bullet Club reunion. We were gonna throw up the too sweet and then the three of you were going to jump us and make us bloody and destroy us and then we were going to be off to the races. And it obviously didn't work out. I remember the first guy in this conversation we're talking about right now, he buzzed us, and he's like 'I just got too good of an offer, and I would have never got the offer without your guys offer, so I just wanted to say thank you."
AJ Styles recently revealed that he plans on retiring after his current WWE contract ends and the chances of seeing the 43-year-old veteran in AEW thus look really bleak.
