AJ Styles retiring after 20 years in the business was believable, according to former WWE veteran (Exclusive) 

Former WWE manager Dutch Mantell recently spoke about AJ Styles pulling off a retirement ruse and blindsiding Cody Rhodes. This week's episode of the blue brand was based around Styles' possible retirement.

Several stars backstage were speculating if The Phenomenal One was calling it a day after a very successful career in the business. Several stars including LA Knight and Cody Rhodes met him in the back and congratulated him. However, AJ fooled everyone and attacked the Undisputed WWE Champion to close the show.

On the latest episode of Sportskeeda Wrestling's Smack Talk, Mantell claimed the segment was very well executed. He pointed out that AJ Styles had been in the wrestling business for over two decades and it made sense that he wanted time off. He noted that the segment was believable which made it more compelling when he attacked Styles.

"Very well done. Sold me and now AJ is back in it. See how easy it is when you do it right? It was actually a good thing to have him say, 'Well you know it's been a long time, I've been doing this forever and maybe my time is up.' It you look at it in his totality, he been there 20 years. He's been in wrestling 20 something years. So he may want to get out of it, which is believeable to a degree." [From 15:00 onwards]

With this attack, AJ Styles has once again put himself at the crossroads with The American Nightmare. The two stars met at Backlash, France but that may not be the end of their saga.

With Clash at the Castle just a few weeks away, it will be interesting to see if this match is made official for the huge premium live event.

---

If you use the quotes from this article, please embed the YouTube video and add an H/T to Sportskeeda for the transcript.