AJ Styles links wrestlers’ struggles to call matches in real time to lack of live events
AJ Styles believes WWE wrestlers are unable to call matches and improvise in the ring due to a decline in live events.
On the latest edition of the Phenomenally Retro Podcast, Styles discussed why wrestlers have a difficult time calling matches on the fly in the ring. He implicated the lack of live events being a major factor.
“Here’s what’s hard with that now, I think a lot of the older guys who said ‘Nah, we’ll call it the ring, kid’, well, a lot of times they had the ability to wrestle so many different guys and they were able to call it in the ring because they weren’t sidelined by time limits or whatever. You have to hit your times or they’ve wrestled the guy so many times before. Of course you can call it, I could call a lot of things. the more I wrestle one guy ‘Hey man,we’ll just do what we did here’ and boom and it’s that quick but we’re not having live events like that anymore so guys aren’t getting any reps with each other.”
“So I think that it’s going to be a lot harder to call, yeah sure, we can call the basic stuff but sometimes basic isn’t very entertaining and that’s our job is to be as entertaining as we possibly can so I think that’s going to be more difficult as time goes on.”
Styles emphasized the diversity and development of in-ring styles and move sets the new talents are bringing in.
“There’s a lot of different styles that we now bring to the ring. It’s not the same. It’s not just shoulder tackles, grab hold, suplex, power slams, not a finish, there’s a lot of different things that, and a lot of different moves that guys and girls do. It’s pretty unbelievable. In fact, when you think about it diving out of the ring and stuff all these things have to take place I don’t know that it could be done like that as well and as flawless as it was back then because it was so basic back then.”
“And that’s another thing that once you get to the ring, there will be some things where we’ll rehearse. And by rehearse, we’re not rehearsing the wrestling. We’re not doing that. We want to see what cameras are going to be in the position that we’re doing a certain thing so we get the best shot on the finish. That’s kind of what we rehearse or maybe somebody does a run in, want to see how everything’s done so that we get the best shot. So those things happen.”
Styles retired from wrestling after a 26-year career at the Royal Rumble this year. He was inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame and has taken on backstage duties at the Performance Center post-retirement.
Rosanne Raphael is a wrestling writer with over three and a half years of experience covering all things related to the industry. From a kindergarten teacher to PR Associate to turning her lifelong passion for the industry into a career, Rosanne is currently writing for F4W Online where she focuses on wrestling news, analysis, and storytelling.
Rosanne previously contributed to Sportskeeda as an Assistant Content Manager.
When not consumed by wrestling, Rosanne is a musician and an aspiring artist.