AJ Styles On Balor Club Reunion, Ridiculous “Redneck Rookie” Nickname

WWE Champion AJ Styles recently spoke with Matt Fowler over at IGN.com to hype WWE’s upcoming Royal Rumble pay-per-view and Boom! Studios new Royal Rumble Special 2018 comic book, which features a story co-written by Styles spotlighting his WWE debut at the 2016 Rumble.

In recent weeks, we’ve the formation of the Balor Club on RAW, with Finn Balor finally pairing up with former Bullet Club partners Luke Gallows and Karl Anderson. Styles is no stranger to the Bullet Club and had some interesting comments about the new alliance on RAW.

“It is what it is, I guess, as far as the way things are supposed to happen,” Styles said. “Even though I had my own reunion with them shortly after I arrived, and its in the story, I’m not even with those guys right now. They’re on RAW and I’m on SmackDown and I’m kind of doing my own thing by myself. But those three guys being together is something special because, truth be told, those were the three guys who were originally together.”

He continued, “If I could look into the future or try to predict things. I’d like to think that maybe we can all be together doing something. At some point. But you never know where things are going to lead, but right now I’m very interested in what I’m seeing.”

The Phenomenal One also commented on WWE announcers dubbing him the “Redneck Rookie” – an absurd moniker for a veteran of his stature. Styles was no fan of the nickname and used his influence backstage to get it dropped.

“I was like ‘Uh, I’ve been doing this for 16 years.’ I’m not a rookie and I’m not even the age a rookie would be coming into anything. So yeah, I kind of tried to squash that as quickly as I could.”