WWE Star AJ Styles Weighs Pros & Cons Of Wrestling's Evolution

Former WWE Champion AJ Styles has been in the wrestling business for so long that he has seen the entire industry, both inside the ring and out of it, change before his eyes. His innovative style has contributed to the evolution of wrestling in its own unique way, but during a recent appearance on the "No-Contest Wrestling" podcast, Styles revealed the one thing he would like to see brought back to wrestling in the wake of how much it has changed since he debuted nearly 30 years ago.

"The one thing that I think is missing the most is selling," Styles said. "The way they used to sell back in the day, man, they really made you believe that this hurt you know? That this guy's in pain, and I just feel like we've gotten away from that, and I'm just as guilty as anybody, but if we could take it back and make a 'less is more' kind of thing happen, I think that would be best for everybody." On the opposite side of things, Styles was also asked what is something that has disappeared from wrestling over the course of his career that he is glad to see gone, and he had a very specific answer.

"After taking them for so many years, I'm glad chair shots are gone," Styles said. "I mean you try to find ways of making them hurt less by like jumping into it when he's throwing it, you're kind of putting your head into it so he doesn't get the full swing, but at the end of the day, it never feels good." Styles rounded off by saying that he would love to admit that taking a chair shot to the back not only hurts less than one to the head, but that it actually doesn't hurt at all. However, that isn't the case as he revealed that Kurt Angle almost knocked the soul out of his body with one particular chair shot to the back during their time in TNA.

Please credit "No-Contest Wrestling" when using quotes from this article, and give a H/T to Wrestling Inc. for the transcription.