Good Brothers say Styles will return ‘one way or another’

In his 20-plus years in pro wrestling, nobody teamed with AJ Styles more often than the Good Brothers of Karl Anderson and Doc Gallows. Nobody knows Styles better than them—and they don’t think his retirement will last. 

The two were asked about Styles’ retirement in an appearance on Busted Open Radio. “I think he can sit it out for a couple of years,” Anderson said. “I think he’s able to fix the itch by helping people. He loves teaching. He loves helping the next generation. He loves helping younger wrestlers. He knows people look up to him. He knows how good he is. He knows how good that people think he is. I really believe that will satisfy the itch…until he can’t satisfy the itch anymore with it.”

“Maybe he just needs a couple of years away,” Anderson continued. “Maybe he just needs a year and a half away. I do think it’s going to be at least a year. I do think it’s going to be at least a year and a half, even. But the itch is always going to come back. He’s too competitive, man. And he’s just too good still. And I know that at some point, I believe he’s going to have to get back in there.”

Gallows agreed. “AJ beat the house, but I would bet this beautiful house that I’m sitting in right now that he will be back,” he said. “And I just see him coming back to the ring one way or another. There’s too much left in the tank. And the itch is real.”

That’s not what Gallows said, however, on the night of Styles’ retirement ceremony on Monday Night Raw in Atlanta. “He actually really is finished, and there’s not another story,” Gallows said in WWE footage captured that night. “There’s not a jump. There’s finality. But I just saw him for the first time, I’ve been here a few hours and he’s been busy, and I just saw him and I could see how happy he was.”