AJ Styles Talks Backstage Atmosphere, WrestleMania 40, Sting and More

WEBVTT

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Why from the Parts Unknown Studios into
the Double Battle Crown, Battle, the

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battle Bound, the Battle Crowd.
Welcome to the Battleground Podcast, your place

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for all things pro wrestling. The
Battle Woud, the Battle Round now making

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their way to the microphones. Give
it up for your hosts. Welcome to

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the Battle Crown. What's up you
guys? Welcome back into our radio's official

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wrestling podcast, the Battleground Podcast.
It is Battle And here's something that's really

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cool because ww Friday Light SmackDown is
returning to the KFC Young Center on Friday,

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June seventh. You don't want to
miss out on seeing your favorite WWE

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superstars live, including my favorites.
Who is on the show with us right

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now? Aj Styles joins the show, Sir, how are you doing today?

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Look at that movie? That's how
good I'm doing. Nor here's something

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that I had to do because this
is kind of a full circle moment for

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me. First of all, let
me start by saying, my seven year

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old wanted me to let you know
that he is a big fan of yours.

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He told me to bring this with
me during this and and of course

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we have a you know, a
little tribute to agents behind this ex Division

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title and uh, I want to
go back in the Dolorean real quick and

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show an old photo of uh me
and one aj style from old school days.

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God the Doug face and you're just
a little kid and I'm just a

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little kid there and uh that was
the old pay per view Wednesday nights here

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in Nashville every week. And now
I get to show you this photo because

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it's it's it's fun to show off. So thank you for coming on the

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show today. And so let's let's
let's just dive right into it. W

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W as hot as it's ever been. What's the backstage atmosphere been like over

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the last two years? And is
the energy back stage matching what we have

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been seeing on TV one? I
mean we're uh, we're having a good

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time. I mean, honestly,
listen, as bad as COVID was for

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everybody, and we not having fans, We're enjoying having those fans back.

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Man, Like, I know it's
been a while, but like when you

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experience that, I'll never forget going. Wow, I really really really miss

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yeah the fans being there because we
feed off their energy, and trust me,

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things hurt a lot worse when the
fans aren't there, And so I

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think we're just enjoying every second and
listen, well, we have fun.

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The fans have fun. The fans
have fun. We have fun. Yeah,

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we're having fun. Yeah, and
you can you could see that playing

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out on TV as well. I
mean, it's it's better than it has

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like you said, I mean with
COVID, it was one of those weird

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things where it's like what's going on? And of course, like you said,

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you feed off the crowd, and
it's kind of hard to feed off

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of a you know, crowd on
a TV screen. Yeah. Yeah,

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no, it sucks, dude,
there's no way about it. It sucked

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well getting into the action. You
know, we just came off the Elimination

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Chamber, which was in Perth,
Australia. You definitely made your presence known

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during the men's chamber match, directing
some fury at mister la Knight there.

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What message were you sending while you
were at Perth? And I mean,

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where do we go from here?
Stay out of my business. Anybody who

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steps in my way is going to
get hurt. I'm done doing the right

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thing. I'm going to do my
thing. That's what I'm going to do

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from here. On out, and
if you get my way, I'm gonna

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have to hurt you. It's not
even about winning anymore. I'm just gonna

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hurt you. I'm gonna make it
where you don't even want to be in

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the rest of Sagrens me anymore because
you gotta get hurt. Yeah, and

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you have a track record of doing
your own thing and being very successful at

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it, so well, thank you
well. And listen, the thing is

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with La Knight, I would at
least have been in the elimination chamber had

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he not, you know, came
down to commentate for some reason and then

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pour water on me and then gets
you know, I get pushed to him,

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had McIntyre beat but then of course
La and I jumps up as if

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he didn't know what he was doing. Yeah, so listen, you could

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say I'm dedicated. I flew twenty
two hours just to beat the piss out

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of him and steel chair and then
giving the styles clash on the steel chair

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exactly. And it was a sight
to see for sure. And you know,

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we're on the road to wrestle Mania, which is you know, crazy

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to think just over a month away. Describe the excitement of leading up to

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the biggest event in the year.
And do you have like a favorite you

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know, event during Mania season many
a weekend that you've been a part of.

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Man, you know, it's it's
it's a busy week for us.

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Man when Maye is around, it's
everybody's staying busy. I mean, we're

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joined the process because that's what it's
all about. But it's almost one of

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those things you're exalt to the every
day from media and then you know,

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leaning up to WrestleMania, whether you're
going to be on Night one or Night

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too, it's all I toe you
wrong. It's it's great, it's great,

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but it'll wear you out. So
the only MAINI I've been able to

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go to is New Orleans twenty eighteen
when you and shins Ke fault and it

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was still the one day event.
I was tired for like four days after

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me. It's one of those things
with the one day event, it was

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such a long day, it was
diculous, so long, and now we're

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doing two days and hopefully that means
not as many matches, not as much

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time as you guys are sitting in
the sun a lot of times. Aky

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Uh, it's kind of unpleasant.
So but also there's that well it's two

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days. It's not one day as
as special as it you stay, you

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know, but it has its pros
and its cons, and at the end

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of the day, we're giving everybody
a chance to hopefully be seen and have

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one of the you know, a
spectacular match at wrestling. Yeah. Actually

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I tried to find this before the
talk, but you know, life gets

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in the way. But actually,
speaking of that, WrestleMania was at the

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post. Like I don't want to
call them posters, they're almost like flags.

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They're on yeah, posts around town. I have one with you on

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it. Oh that's awesome. Yeah. Someone took it down through it on

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eBay for like a hundred bucks.
Like for a hundred bucks. I've got

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that somewhere. It's like the like
a twin. Well, the next time

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we're in a city, I'm gonna
shim me up a pole and just start

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taking them down. I'm gonna sell
right, why not, right, if

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that's what we're gonna do. Yeah, you know, down the city,

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they could just take them down.
Yeah yeah. So yeah, Well,

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not to bring up a negative subject, but you know, going back to

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uh a, mister l a night, you know, one of the biggest

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stories of twenty twenty three was kind
of his ascension from the background to the

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whatever you want to call it foreground. You two have worked together in some

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places previously. You know, what
are your thoughts on his popularity and kind

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of you know, getting his time
in the spotlight, and do you think

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he's the world champion material? You
got to respect what he's been through to

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get to where he's at. I've
been there, done that. I know

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exactly how it feels for something.
I believe in you, and all you

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need is a chance. And he
got his chance. And now you know,

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people don't stop saying, yeah,
you know it could throw a punch

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or kicked. We're gonna hear yes. So he tudos to him for us

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hanging in there and getting the job
done when I know there's frustration there.

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So that listen, right, that's
it. That's it. I'm not saying

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more good things about it. That's
it. We're just gonna leave that as

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the way it is. Somebody you
know that we've looked around on the internet.

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There's a lot of rumors swirling around
about a certain somebody that you know

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very well, very very well,
possibly coming over to w W if you

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know Toma Tonga was to show up
in w W. What do you think

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somebody like him could bring to the
roster to WW as a brand. Well,

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I think that s guy's the limit. This guy can get after it.

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I know how good Tom is,
so the fact that he may be

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coming over would be awesome. I
was hoping that he come over a long

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time ago, but he you know, he didn't have any interest back then.

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So if there's an interest style,
he's making the right decision. Yeah,

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And it seems like right now,
w like we've said earlier, WWE

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is hotter than ever. I mean, you can't scroll through social media without

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seeing some sort of WWE content.
And of course now you've got WWE heading

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to Netflix, and I mean,
it's just a great time. And what

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do you think, I guess as
a whole for WWE going to Netflix,

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what do you think that does for
the company? I wish, you know,

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I wish more guys who I think
would do well in WWE who may

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have been afraid as far as past
things have happened with Vince being there.

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I wish that they would understand that
WWE is in this for the long run.

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We're talking about ten years on Netflix, possibly twenty years, you know,

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like that's a long time. We're
not going anywhere. And the fact

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that you can come here and you
can have a job, you know,

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as long as you can produce for
as long as you want it, and

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depending where you're from, and you
know, you could reach out to other

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countries. So I just wish I
wish more guys would understand this. We

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are not just in the United States, We're not just in England. We

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are global where you even bigger now
than we've ever been places that we weren't

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able to go. Now we're in, you know. So I just wish

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they could they could see that and
know that, like, listen, this

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isn't the same WW that Vince was
in charge of. Like I really believe

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that Triple H looks at some you
know, our talent and go all right,

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li'sten get them better, or let's
find ways to bring out the best

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at them rather than show off the
worst. Because a lot of those guys

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and girls when they got released for
WW, it crushes them. Yeah,

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I never understood why we want to
do something like that. And rather than

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just okay, let's send them back
in NXT that just need a little bit

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more work or something like that.
But being released it's a it'll crush you.

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And I don't want to see people, you know, their lives being

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room because of the job. At
the end of the day, it's just

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a job, but still it's something
they've worked for their whole life. And

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then when you're told you're not good
enough, man, it sucks, But

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that's that's not the way it is
these days now. With jimp Reah in

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charge, I think he's doing a
great job of making everyone feel important.

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Yeah. Yeah, And you've seen
it across every I mean, you know,

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the backstage shows have been more up. I mean, NXT is more

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like everything has just been kind of
kind of rising up. So we don't

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want to take up too much of
the time. You know, we would

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be if we didn't mention an old
running buddy of your sting, you know,

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the w W Hall of Famer.
He's hanging up his boots this weekend.

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You guys shed a ton of blood, sweat and tears and TNA what

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words or accolades, maybe you know, kind of giving his you know him

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his flowers? Would you pass along
to the today? Oh man? You

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know they say never meet your heroes. I got to meet one of mine,

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obviously, it was sting, and
he is such a great guy.

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Like he's a nice guy, has
always been a nice guy. And uh,

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man, it just made my day
to meet somebody like that who I

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admired so much and enjoyed watching so
Uh. He has definitely urged his time

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in pro wrestling, and man,
he went a lot longer than I'm going

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to. Yeah, it's awesome that
he gets to end on his terms and

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not someone else's. When you go
out on an injury, that's not the

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way you want to go out.
So for him to end it when he

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wants ended, that's awesome. Yeah. Absolutely, Well, I know we

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don't want to take up too much
your time because I know you got to

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a plan of you know, beating
l A. Knight even that's right recently

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an elimination chamber. And here's the
last question where we turned to robots to

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ask this question. We turned to
chat GPT to ask aj Styles a question

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and what came up with. If
you were to have a tag team partner

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from the Animal Kingdom, who would
have beat and why? Also would you

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trust a giraffe to execute the perfect
phenomenal for arm. I don't trust the

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giraffe to freaking springboard. He's too
tall. He's gonna screw it. Tall

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guys can't springboard very well, most
of them. They are some, so

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he would really struggle. So but
I would want to. I'd probably find

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like a cat could be the king
of the juggle, a lion right to

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do his business. Yeah, they're
they're agile, didn't get after it.

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Probably one of the stronger animals in
the cheam. So yeah, that's what

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I'm going with chat GBT. We
could see, we can see what Ernest

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Miller's up to. Yeah, he
was the cat. He stopped lying,

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So there is that. There is
that. Well, we could get game

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from teching. How's that? There? You go? That's good? Right?

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Yeah, speaking up video games real
quick before I want to let you

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go. Your ratings dropped this year
from last year. How does that make

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you feel? Like? How does
ratings and video Well, listen, listen.

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It just goes to show they really
don't have any idea what they're really

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rating. But I would say,
if they're brating this on twenty twenty three,

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I was gone most of the year, so I get it. Now

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I'm gonna kick some freaking tail in
twenty twenty four, So my rating better

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be up or I'm gonna freaking be
really mean to them. They're gonna they're

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gonna turn into my La Night.
Yeah, being a gamer that it affects

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my ego a little bit. So
we're going straighten things up, absolutely well,

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we'll make sure that they straighten things
up for you. Well, we'll

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start like a hashtag on Twitter,
because it seems that if you start a

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hashtag on Twitter for ww Superstars,
it seems to happen. So oh really,

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00:14:00.200 --> 00:14:01.840
AJ styles ninety nine and see if
that works out. Now, I

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00:14:01.840 --> 00:14:05.480
don't listen, I don't need a
ninety nine. I'll take a ninety one

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00:14:05.960 --> 00:14:09.440
there, kay, let me,
but let me finish twenty twenty four and

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then you can decide with it.
And yeah, I better look better too,

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I've been with. Yeah, Well, we'll make sure we get out

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00:14:16.320 --> 00:14:18.480
there. Well, AJ, it's
been an honor and a pleasure to have

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you on the show. You talk
about not meeting your ero as well.

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I got to sort of meet you
through the camera, and it's an honor

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and a privilege to talk to you
and come full circle. All right,

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man, I appreciate it. We
hope you enjoyed today's episode of the Battleground

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00:14:33.679 --> 00:14:37.440
Podcast. Make sure you give it
five stars and a nice review. To

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00:14:37.440 --> 00:14:52.840
stay up to date with the show, follow them at Battleground Podcast on Instagram.