Another WWE Legend Retires Just Weeks After John Cena’s Farewell

Another professional wrestling icon is calling it quits — just weeks after John Cena’s retirement match and a few months after Goldberg also bowed out of in-ring competition.

AJ Styles, the two-time WWE Champion credited as trailblazer of modern wrestling, is retiring as an in-ring performer. At Saturday’s Royal Rumble event in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, Styles put his career on the line against Gunther, the same man whom Cena and Goldberg wrestled in their final bouts. Styles lost the match via knockout after Gunther applied a sleeper hold.

While the stakes were set up via an on-screen storyline, it seems to have written off Styles for his legitimate retirement from performing in-ring. His WWE contract is reportedly expiring in February. In 2019, the two-time IWGP Heavyweight Champion claimed he was sticking with WWE until the end of his career, which would conclude at the end of his current contract.

“I can tell you that the contract that I signed, here in the WWE, is my last,” he said on the podcast Chasing Glory, per WhatCulture. “This is it for me. This is where I’m going to end my career no matter what happens. I got to, you know? I want to be there for my kids.”

Styles reiterated he was planning to retire soon during a WWE on-camera interview in late 2025, per SEScoops: “I’m getting old, folks. Listen, if I could find the fountain of youth and take a couple sips, I’d wrestle for the rest of my life, but I am getting older. The fear of embarrassing myself is getting closer … You know what? There comes a time in a man’s life when he has to take care of business, but when business is done, it’s time to take care of his family. I need to spend time with my family.”

While Styles has been straightforward about his intentions to retire, many fans are questioning if he’s truly done. After all, wrestlers such as Ric Flair, Shawn Michaels and Terry Funk famously wrestled again after big “retirement” angles.

Styles stoked speculation himself after losing at Royal Rumble. He began to take his gloves off to place them on the mat, seemingly playing into the wrestling tradition of wrestlers leaving their boots in the ring when they retire. However, he stopped himself and left the ring with the gloves.

Will AJ Styles Jump to AEW for 1 More Match?

Fans have long hoped that Styles would wrestle AEW talents like Will Ospreay after “The Phenomenal One” exited WWE. After all, Styles isn’t just a WWE legend; he made himself a wrestling icon before his WWE run through his years in TNA Wrestling and New Japan Pro-Wrestling.

However, Paul Levesque, WWE’s creative head who previously wrestled as Triple H, claimed that Styles is done in-ring for good.

“I don’t wanna speak for him, but the conversations that he had with me, he made it very clear that he was just done with the in-ring,” Levesque said on the Royal Rumble post-show, per Athlon Sports. “There’s a point when you just reach in your career where you say, I don’t want to do this anymore, and when your heart goes, no matter how good you are — he hasn’t lost a step, at anything — but when you just say, I’m just at a place when I don’t wanna do this anymore, it’s time. Before you get hurt, before you get told you’re not allowed to do this anymore. I think he was there.”

Levesque went on to express hopes that Styles would work with WWE in a behind-the-scenes capacity.

While Styles has still not spoken out about his future post-Royal-Rumble, that’s a pretty bold and definitive statement for the WWE exec to make (unless Levesque is playing in to some sort of WWE Unreal angle). If Styles goes on the wrestle in AEW soon, it would be an embarrassing look for the TKO-owned company.