AJ Styles talks about turning down a WWE developmental deal when WCW closed

“I had a developmental deal to move down to Cincinnati Ohio. But I was (just) married and I didn’t think it was right even though my wife said, ‘Go!’ It wasn’t right to leave her and have her move back in with her mother. My job is to take care of her, so I turned down, respectfully, the developmental deal with WWE and then within, like, a couple of months, TNA started up, which I thought was just another independent thing that I thought was happening. It wasn’t a big deal to me, but within six months, I was like, ‘Okay, this might be something.’ And as it grew on, it grew and I grew to love that place because I felt like it was something I and other guys were building. We were building. We were the foundation. We were going to build this into something great. And at some point in time, at one point in time, it was great. It was a great place to be. We were having a lot of fun. We were changing the way people looked at pro wrestling.”

source: Chasing Glory

credit: Wrestling Inc.