AJ Styles said his role as a coach at the WWE Performance Center will not be permanent, as he’s filling in for a staff member who is out after undergoing knee surgery.
“One of our coaches had to get knee surgery. I have now taken his place until he’s back. I am not a coach per se that’s down here every week. I am just filling in until he’s back. That’s it.
I’m actually having a lot of fun with it, and I’m trying to make everything that we do very, very practical. Because this is what I see going on, so we’re going to do this and this right here and make sense of why you’re doing it. I want to see your feetwork, feetwork or footwork, I’m not sure how you say that, but little things like that.
I’m changing stuff up a little bit because the more you do the same thing over and over, the less you want to come to class and work hard. It gets redundant, so I’m trying to change things up a little bit, but not take away from what they already know.”
His comments paint a different picture than the one he gave in late July, when he said he’d be taking over a class at the Performance Center. At the time, Styles praised the talent’s effort and said he himself still needed to learn how to work in that coaching role.
That approach is consistent with what Styles has been doing since ending his in-ring career. In addition to scouting new talent, he has produced matches for WWE Evolve, a role he enjoyed more than he expected.