Mark Henry Reveals How It Felt Watching AJ Styles’ WWE Tribute

Mark Henry has a lot of love for AJ Styles.

On the May 31st episode of SmackDown, AJ Styles teased that he was going to retire before attacking Cody Rhodes. The assault came after Styles had come up short when challenging Rhodes at Backlash in France.

The angle was a very clear homage to Mark Henry’s own fake retirement in 2013 when he convinced the world his career was over. But just as everyone was coming to terms with the emotional moment in the ring, Henry attacked John Cena.

The storyline set up a match between the pair at Money In The Bank, which the Hall of Famer subsequently lost.

Mark Henry has since admitted he wasn’t physically capable of being WWE’s top guy during this period.

Mark Henry “Honored” By AJ Styles Tribute

During an appearance on The Ringer Wrestling Show, Henry looked back on the homage by Styles. When asked whether The Phenomenal One reached out before SmackDown, Henry said that he didn’t, but confirmed he did in the days after the show.

“No. I loved it though. I loved it. You talk about paying homage to somebody. Like man. Him and Cody both. It took a couple of days and then AJ texted me and said, ‘I hope I made you proud.’ It almost brought a tear to my eye because for somebody to respect you so much to wanna do good by you and they wanna shine the light on somebody that influenced them, come on man it don’t get much better than that.

I felt very honored that he did that. He didn’t have to text me. I knew it was intentional when I saw the jacket I was like (laughs), is this dude wearing pastel? Oh my, let me see how this is gonna go. He did everything but bring the boots out and put the boots down. It was awesome. Frame for frame. You can tell he watched it over a couple times…it was awesome man, I loved it.”

Mark Henry is currently a free agent after letting his AEW contract expire. Following his departure, the veteran said he regretted not being able to do more to help Tony Khan.

H/t to WrestlingNews.Co