AJ Styles officially retired from WWE at the Royal Rumble last month when he lost his career-threatening match to GUNTHER, which came as a surprise to many fans who believed that the 48-year-old would hang up his boots this coming April at WrestleMania. It was later revealed that Styles wanted to retire at the Royal Rumble as it was the event where he debuted for the company 10 years ago, but during a recent vlog on WWE's YouTube channel,"The Phenomenal One" explained that he wasinitially going to end his career at WrestleMania 41 last year."Everybody wants to retire at WrestleMania, right? The biggest show of the year that we do, and I was gonna do exactly that, but I just came back for an injury that was supposed retire me, cause of the injury, it retires most. But once I got healed up and was comfortable enough running and doing what I needed to do to be AJ Styles, it just didn't feel right to come back for two months just to retire. It didn't seem right and I thought what a better way to be able to leave on the pay-per-view where you debuted."Tonight on "WWE Raw," a tribute to Styles is will take place an hour away from his hometown of Gainesville in Atlanta, Georgia, with stars from all brands of the promotion scheduled to be in attendance. It's also just been confirmed that the former WWE Champion will appear live on "Raw" for the tribute.If you use any of the quotes in this article, please credit "WWE" with a h/t to Wrestling Inc. for the transcription.
