AJ Styles reflects on Boneyard match regrets and family controversy

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Two interviews with the Phenomenal AJ Styles are making the rounds, and they’re linked by a couple of things the pro wrestling legend and WWE Hall of Famer would like to change about the past. One comes from a brief interview with Sporf, in which Styles talked about his “cinematic” match with Undertaker at WrestleMania 36 (emphasis mine): “It was definitely different. It was something we didn’t know was going to happen until it did. Getting the Bone Yard match built to look like the match that it looked like was pretty unbelievable. Man, to have the match with The Undertaker, his last match, I wish we could’ve done it earlier. Him and I, there is something about the timing we had together, it was a recipe for a great match, we just got to do it in a cinematic way.” It would have been pretty awesome to see The Dead Man and Styles put on a show in a ring the traditional way — especially if it could have happened circa, say, 2008-2012. But the Boneyard match was really fun, and special in its own way (plus, it’s not nearly as polarizing as the fan-free ‘Mania’s other “cinematic” match). The man a lot of folks call Uncle Al is also Cody Rhodes’ latest guest on What Do You Wanna Talk About? There, the two talk about an internet flap both men were involved in back in August. If you were on the wrestle web around that time, you remember it: Nattie Neidhart put out a tweet praising AJ’s son Avery, now a buzzed-about pro wrestler himself who just signed with TNA. At the time, 19-year-old Avery was working the independents, and an indie veteran named Arik Cannon responded to Nattie’s post with a story about AJ’s boy not helping to set-up and tear-down a show they’d recently been on together. A weeks long internet debate about nepotism and dues paying ensured. On Rhodes’ new pod, AJ didn’t say much, but regrets even responding to Cannon: “Probably the most ridiculous thing that was ever talked about on X. I may have gotten rage baited into that.” Rhodes says he should have left it be, but still can’t entirely seem to let it be: “I was standing by. I like to get in there every now and again. That one, I thought, ‘This kid. We’re not doing that.’ Ben Bishop had oddly a really good take on it. I wish it would’ve ended with that… He had a really good ‘let it be.’ “Some of us, myself included, couldn’t let it be. I didn’t mean multi-gens didn’t need to do the thing they’re supposed to do. What I meant is there is a level of knowledge and osmosis. My mom and sister, I consider them wrestlers. They’ve never set up a chair in their life. They lived it. You went through your run with your children, you lived by it. A little grace, it all I’m saying. He’s got a target on his back and that’s never going to go away. ”I don’t regret for one second getting in there, but I didn’t mean second gens don’t need to set up chairs.” Mark out over the Boneyard match is you want, and revisit the chairs controversy if you must, in the comments below (or with a longer post in The Feed).