Tonight’s episode of WWE Raw was dedicated to AJ Styles. Old friends from TNA and former WWE stars all appeared to pay tribute to The Phenomenal One. Abyss, Frankie Kazarian, The Good Brothers, The Undertaker — all in attendance to give Styles the proper farewell for his Hall of Fame wrestling career.
AJ Styles Gets Retirement Surprise
During his speech at the end of the show, he got one last surprise. Styles is joining the 2026 WWE Hall of Fame class. Stephanie McMahon was previously revealed as the headliner for this year’s HOF class.
The NEWEST inductee into the 2026 WWE Hall of Fame!
@AJStylesOrg pic.twitter.com/MAXc5hHODu
— WWE (@WWE) February 24, 2026
Styles also explained the reason he didn’t leave his gloves in the ring in Saudi Arabia. He wanted to bring them home and retire in his home state of Georgia. To close the show, he officially left his gloves in the ring and retired from in-ring competition. This puts to rest those “one more match” rumors, at least for the time being. Fans were pushing for Styles to wrap his career up in TNA or AEW.
In a recent vlog posted to WWE’s YouTube, Styles confirms he was set to retire at WrestleMania 41. Unfortunately, a Lisfranc injury kept him out of the ring until last year’s Royal Rumble. Because of that, he felt it wasn’t the appropriate time to retire with that short of a build.
“Everybody wants to retire at WrestleMania, the biggest show of the year that we do. I was going to do exactly that, but I just came back from an injury that was supposed to retire me,” Styles says. “It retires most. Once I got healed up and was comfortable enough running and doing what I need to do to be AJ Styles, it just didn’t feel right to come back for two months just to retire. It didn’t seem right and I thought, what a way to be able to leave on the pay-per-view where you debuted.”
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