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AJ Styles’ Pro Wrestling Legacy Mocked By Former WWE Champion

By John Canton • Published Dec 19, 2025 15:45 EST
AJ Styles Promo

A potential future opponent of AJ Styles has taken a subtle jab at the future WWE Hall of Famer.

The recent retirement of John Cena, who tapped out to Gunther at Saturday Night’s Main Event, has made the wrestling world realize that the pro wrestlers we’ve been watching for decades can’t keep wrestling forever.

AJ Styles is 48 years old, just like Cena, and Styles has made it clear he plans to retire as a wrestler in 2026. While Styles hasn’t said when he might retire, a farewell match at WrestleMania or another show later in the year could be when the Phenomenal One calls it a career.

During his 10-year WWE career, AJ Styles has won the WWE Championship twice, along with numerous other titles, and he’s a current World Tag Team Champion on Raw with Dragon Lee.

Before WWE, Styles was a World Champion in TNA and NJPW. His TNA run was arguably the greatest of all time in that company, so Styles is obviously going to be a WWE and TNA Hall of Famer down the road.

Gunther Takes A Cheap Shot At AJ Styles

Since Gunther beat John Cena and Bill Goldberg in their final WWE matches this year, many people have called the former 2-time World Champion Gunther a Career Killer or Legend Killer, like Randy Orton was known as about 20 years ago.

On the December 15th episode of WWE Raw, Gunther was booed heavily by the crowd because he beat Cena. Gunther went on to annoy the fans for several minutes. When he left the building, Gunther stared at AJ Styles in the parking lot and did Cena’s “You Can’t See Me” hand gesture to Styles.

Many people, including fans and WWE Hall of Famers, have predicted that AJ Styles could be the next legend Gunther retires. When that happens is unknown for now.

During his interview with The Ringer Wrestling Show, Gunther was asked if he had a hit list after his confrontation with Styles was mentioned.

“I don’t really have a list but yeah, AJ, I’ve never wrestled AJ before. I think it would be a great one. [sarcastically] AJ is definitely one of the best cruiserweight wrestlers in TNA history. We shall see.”

The next episode of Raw will be on December 22nd, and it will be taped at the December 19th SmackDown taping.

H/T Fightful