AJ Styles says he will retire before 50: ‘I’m not afraid of retirement’

AJ Styles says his in-ring career does not have much time left.

The 47-year-old appeared on Insight with Chris Van Vliet and said he plans to retire before turning 50. He also noted that he has an idea for a storyline to build to a retirement match.

“I will not wrestle to 50, I promise you that,” Styles said on the show.

Van Vliet noted that Styles hasn’t lost a step in the ring, but Styles disagreed.

“I think I hide it very well,” he responded. “Things aren’t as easy as they used to be. The first thing you lose as you get older is your stamina. That’s the first thing to go. You still got that power, but the stamina…”

He later added:

“I’m not afraid of retirement. I think it’s going to be great once I get there and can say, ‘Phew, I did it.’ But for me, it’s doing it correctly. The retirement, doing it correctly, something that I’m confident in like, ‘That was it, that was the one.’ I hope that’s what The Undertaker felt.”

“It’s a final match, but it’s the story that led up to it, I think, I hope,” he continued.

“No opponent in mind. An idea that I will not share with you that I thought if I could get The Undertaker in the ring with me, that I wanted to do. But there’s an idea there that I think kind of sums up who AJ Styles is. We’ll see if it happens. You’ll know it if it does, but we’ll have to wait and see.”

Styles returned to the ring in last month’s Men’s Royal Rumble, his first match in close to four months. He had been sidelined since October due to a foot injury sustained in a match against Carmelo Hayes on Raw. Styles was also on last night’s edition of Raw, where he promised to call out Logan Paul on next week’s show from Madison Square Garden.

Styles’ full discussion with Chris Van Vliet is available below.