How’s this for a tribute?
WWE announced this week’s episode of Monday Night Raw in Atlanta would be a special tribute to AJ Styles, who lost a career threatening match against GUNTHER at Royal Rumble. All signs pointed to his retiring from professional wrestling, and then flirting with maybe not actually hanging them up, what with not leaving his gloves in the ring after the match.
Well, he’s well and truly done, it seems.
He made it official in the main event of Raw, explaining he didn’t leave his gloves in Saudi Arabia because he wanted to bring them back home. So he took them off and left them in the ring.
It appeared that’s how they were going to close it out, with the man getting the chance to thank his family and say goodbye to fans, when The Undertaker made a dramatic entrance. He started to say they had unfinished business, and Styles looked legitimately shocked by this. It was a ploy, of course.
He was really there to tell Styles he will be inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame as a member of the 2026 class. He joins Stephanie McMahon as the only two inductees announced so far.