Summary

AJ Styles said a WWE developmental offer in 2002 could have taken his career in a very different direction, and not for the better.

Speaking on The Phenomenally Retro Podcast, Styles looked back on the period after WCW shut down, when WWE brought him in for matches and a camp tied to HWA in Cincinnati. He said the company offered him a developmental deal, but he turned it down because the money was too low and because he did not want to leave his wife Wendy at home while trying to make it work.

Styles said the timing mattered just as much as the offer itself. HWA closed as a developmental territory not long after, while TNA launched months later and gave him the platform that helped define the next phase of his career.

Quote from AJ Styles

"So after WCW goes out of business, I was given an opportunity to wrestle Shane Helms. We had a great match. I wrestled another guy. Then they had me go to a camp WWE did. Maybe it was HWA in Cincinnati, and a lot of us had a trial. It was that whole time, and they didn’t care. In fact, they told me, ‘I don’t need to see all this high flying. I don’t need to see all that.’ Now, I understand why. I know what they were trying to see. Anyway, I was offered that deal. I’ll have you know, some guys did take that deal. I did not.

"It was for $500 a week, which is barely able to afford anything. My wife Wendy was at home, I wasn’t leaving her. That’s not the way this works. But HWA closed down as a developmental area, I want to say, like 5 months after that. I guarantee you, I would have been shut out with them.

"This is before Daniel Bryan had showed up and kind of changed things as a guy our size. They really weren’t used that well. I don’t even know. I guess maybe Eddie and that group of WCW guys… I don’t know how they were being used at that time. But I’m so happy that things didn’t work out, that I actually made a good decision and didn’t take that contract, because then it was months later that TNA started up in 2002. It was June of 2002 when it started up. It was like two months after the trial as a fact. So it worked out exactly the way it should for me. I don’t think I would have went anywhere if I would have accepted that contract."

Styles later went on to say:

"No. Because I’d been down that road before when WCW closed. I mean, who knows? But then, this crazy place TNA opens up. Maybe I would have gone there. I don’t know."

How TNA reshaped AJ Styles' rise

Styles' comments underline how narrow that window was in 2002. Instead of getting stuck in a system he believed was not built for someone his size and style at the time, he landed in TNA, where he became one of the promotion's foundational stars.

That also adds another layer to the career that eventually brought him back to WWE years later. Long before his IWGP Heavyweight Title win over Kazuchika Okada in 2014, Styles was already making a choice that helped keep his momentum alive after WCW's collapse.

Sources

AJ Styles on The Phenomenally Retro Podcast