AJ Styles Retirement May Not Be Final, Says TNA Founder Jeff Jarrett

Jeff Jarrett doesn't think AJ Styles is done with wrestling.

Jarrett is a wrestling great who has been in the business for decades as a wrestler and a promoter. 

While he's been a World Champ in WCW and worked for the WWE during the 90s, he's probably best known for being the founder of TNA Wrestling back when it first started in 2002.

There's little argument that Jarrett's biggest find was none other than Styles, who starred during the promotion's first PPV back in 2002 and wrestled in the company for over a decade until 2013.

Styles would eventually move on to the WWE in 2016 and solidified his legacy there, emerging as a two-time WWE champion before retiring following his loss to Gunther at the Royal Rumble this year.

Although it was supposed to be Styles' retirement match, the 48-year-old has left the door open on a possible return to the ring, something that Jarrett believes will eventually happen.

"I don't know, and probably only AJ can really answer that," Jarrett told SportsBoom.us in an exclusive interview. 

"But if we're talking Vegas here. If I'm a betting man. I don't know that. A lot of times a guy's health, whether it's a neck, a back or something that may be lingering out there, he might have gotten advice and said, 'I'm done.' If that's not the case, I definitely think we have not seen the last of AJ Styles in the ring. He's got a son that wants to get in the business. He's a young man. Look, he's younger than me, and I'm still lacing up the boots from time to time. But I can tell you, I don't think we've seen the last of him. I certainly hope we haven't."

Jeff Jarrett on AJ Styles' Retirement

Styles has had a long career, emerging as a star in TNA's early days. 

He actually won his first world title against Jarrett in 2003 at the age of 26. He would continue to be a prominent fixture in TNA's main event scene, becoming known as "Mr. TNA" to many.

Jarrett once again hammers home that he believes that Styles just needs to "decompress" for a little bit before eventually making his return to the ring. As Jarrett himself mentioned, he's still wrestling from time to time as a member of AEW at the age of 58.

"When you look at AJ's career, it was really cool to me that 2002 was when we got started, and he essentially was there until 2013, about a 10-year TNA career. Went to Japan for about three, three and a half years, so to speak. Then he had another 10-year run. He's probably going to decompress. He's got four beautiful kids, a beautiful wife. AJ is a family man, so he'll probably decompress, take a little time, and then I'm very excited to see what's next. He's a great dude, and I wish him nothing but the best."

When asked if he has spoken to Styles since his retirement, he said he has not verbally spoken to him, but that he has texted him.

"Not actually spoken to him, but texted," said Jarrett. "Haven't spoken to him, he's just a special guy all the way around."

When AJ Styles' Prime Exactly Was

When the topic of Styles' prime is brought up and when exactly that time period took place, Jarrett said that from 2002 until 2007 was his athletic prime, but Styles' overall prime lasted through his days in Japan during the mid-2010s all the way until his WWE debut in 2016.

"When you get on the court with certain basketball players and you kind of see their jumps, and you just go, 'Okay, this guy's different.'" said Jarrett. 

"His athletic build from 2002 to about 2006 or 2007, AJ's athletic ability really carried him, because he could do the wow factor three or four or five times during a match. The audience would know, 'Okay, I'm not going to get to see that the rest of the night. That guy's different.' 

"But when you start looking at the American fan, I think toward the end of his TNA career and his Japanese years, I think that is something that is probably prime AJ Styles, maybe the first year at WWE. That cadence was different, a lot more grind, a lot more TV wrestling and all that. But I like to say kind of the last one or two years, but he had a long prime, because he learned his craft really well. I'm talking about the style that was new on the market in some ways, but he incorporated all the high flying stuff. That's a good question though, it's very subjective," he concluded.