AJ Styles made an appearance on the latest episode of Insight With Chris Van Vliet to discuss a wide range of topics. Here are the highlights:
On the TNA six-sided ring:
“The six-sided ring was different. It made us different. It sucked as a ring. I didn’t realize how rough it was on my body until we got back to a squared ring and I was like oh my God. I forgot that these are much better to bump on the actual mat, because it’s pillars under the six-sided ring, so you can move them in and out. Where in a squared ring, it’s in the middle, that bounce, whatever you might get. You could take a bump right on that pillar, so you can imagine that hurts. There was a point in time where we were overseas, we were in England and it was a big show, Kurt and I were wrestling, and he was going to give me the belly to belly off the top. I remember taking that. I go I’m never taking that again. Don’t ask me Kurt, it’s killing me. And then of course we get the squared ring he’s like Hey, do you mind? I’m like, Oh, okay. He gave it to me in a squared ring and I was like, Oh. I landed and it was like nothing compared to what it was. I was like, Oh, I can take that. Right then and there, as pissed off as I was about going to a squared ring and abandoning the six-sided ring, it was at that moment I go, I’m okay with the squared ring now. But when you saw TNA and you saw a six-sided ring, you knew that was TNA. No one was doing that, maybe in Mexico, but we made it who we were. I think they lost their identity to a certain extent when they went to just a regular ring, just like everybody else.”
On the TNA Unbreakable triple threat with Samoa Joe and Christopher Daniels:
“Because we’ve wrestled each other so much, not necessarily in triple threats, but we wrestled each other. We know each other very well. It could have been better. We went home way earlier than we were supposed to. We got mixed up in a spot. Joe did something. I was like, Wait, are we supposed to be going here? Nope, bam. We did it anyway. So we ad-libbed a good 10 minutes of that match. All that at the end is totally ad-libbed. Thank God we knew each other so well, because we could just communicate and get to where we needed to be. So it could have been really good. It was just good.”
On when was the last time he did a Spiral Tap:
“That’s a good question. I don’t know. Maybe Matt Hardy, when him and I wrestled in TNA. Maybe it was Bubba. I can’t remember. Yeah, I’ve lost it. It’s a different kind of flip. It’s not the same. Even when I watch other guys do it, I still don’t do it like them. So yeah, they like to twist themselves over when they’re coming off. I don’t want a twist. I want a peak and then turn. So it’s a little bit different. So there’s a stalling involved to make it look beautiful and then go. But I’ve kind of lost it.”
