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Throughout wrestling history, even in the biggest companies such as WWE, there can be real-life animosity behind the scenes amongst talent. Sometimes, it can be between people who aren’t even active performers. Over the last few years, issues between AJ Styles and Paul Heyman have come to the surface, with the pair seemingly not being on good terms with one another. There are reasons for this supposed to heat, which all stems back to when Paul Heyman was in creative control over Monday Night Raw back in 2019 and 2020 when Styles was an active member of the Raw roster.
Paul Heyman And AJ Styles Collided When They Were Both Moved To Raw
In 2016, AJ Styles made a shocking debut in WWE, quickly becoming one of the top stars in the company and living up to his name as one of the best in the entire world when it came to in-ring work. Shortly after his arrival, his teammates from the Bullet Club, Karl Anderson, and Luke Gallows made their debuts too with a lot of fanfare, with them having the reputation of being up there with the best tag teams in the world.
For the most part, Styles and Heyman would be separate in WWE, aside from a brief Champion vs Champion match in which Styles battled Brock Lesnar at Survivor Series, but that was the height of their interactions. Heyman and Lesnar were mostly on Raw, whilst Styles was leading SmackDown as the WWE Champion, often at the top of the card. In 2019, Styles was drafted over to Raw, reuniting with The Good Brothers. Shortly after, Heyman was made Executive Director of Raw, giving him a lot of creative power on the brand, although his time in charge led to some questionable booking.
AJ Styles Blamed Paul Heyman For The Firing Of Karl Anderson & Luke Gallows
During Styles’ time on Raw, he was mostly fighting in the midcard title scene, mostly with the United States Championship on the line. This was a significant step down for Styles since his days on SmackDown. Even with the Good Brothers once again by his side at times, they were presented as nothing other than lackeys for Styles and weren’t presented as a serious threat in the tag team title scene much at all.
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In 2020, the global Covid-19 pandemic began, leading to WWE having a complete overhaul of talents and staff in what was branded as ‘budget cuts’, and two of those releases included Anderson and Gallows. Allegedly, this led to Styles being furious with Heyman for not fighting to keep his two friends employed. Whilst Heyman was in a position of power, there were several positions above him with more authority, including John Laurinaitis and Vince McMahon, who had the final decisions in terms of who stayed and who was fired, although if Heyman had plans for them, he could indeed have perhaps fought to keep them, so this was likely indicative of them not being high up in terms of creative plans.
However, expecting Heyman to fight for them would have meant expecting him to fight for everyone, and when he wasn’t in a high enough authority role, there was likely only so much he could do. The anger felt by Styles for his two friends becoming unemployed seemed to be directed toward Heyman as a way of his expressing annoyance at the higher-ups in the company.
Paul Heyman And AJ Styles Have Been Separate Ever Since
In an interview with Inside the Ropes, Heyman refused to shed any light on what really went down between him and Styles, opting to state that ‘what goes on behind closed doors, in those meetings, as far as I’m concerned, is privileged conversation’. In terms of Styles’ views on the whole situation, he would be drafted to SmackDown at the first opportunity and has since mostly been away from whichever brand Heyman appears on. However, much like with Heyman, it seems as though Styles hasn’t held a long-term grudge.
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Speaking on his Twitch stream, Styles stated that it was ‘water under the bridge’ and that he isn’t one to hold a grudge. Going into the reasoning for his problems, Styles revealed that it was down to the futures of Anderson and Gallows. Styles explained, ‘It’s over. My buddies are doing fine. I was concerned about them when this whole thing went down, but they are doing great’. It is understandable why Styles jumped to the aid of his friends, especially given the state the world was in at the time, with the wrestling world outside WWE and AEW struggling to truly operate, but it does seem as though neither man is still holding much of a grudge, although they haven’t worked together on screen since this incident.
