AJ Styles is officially beginning the next chapter of his WWE career.
Following his in-ring retirement at the Royal Rumble earlier this year, the future WWE Hall of Famer has revealed details about the role he is now taking on behind the scenes with the company.
Styles discussed his new responsibilities during the premiere episode of his podcast Phenomenally Retro.
While the show largely focuses on his long-time passion for video games, the former WWE Champion also spoke about how he is now helping WWE identify and develop talent.
According to Styles, part of his new job involves scouting potential prospects online and seeing where he can help them improve.
“I’m on the internet and I’m checking out talent because it’s kind of going to be part of my job with WWE now. I’m looking for talent and I’m looking to see what I can do, if I can do anything for them, if they can get better, you know, little things like that,” he explained. “Because if there is a possibility of them maybe getting a WWE ID [contract] or something like that, then hopefully I can facilitate and get that to happen.”
But talent scouting is only part of the assignment.
Styles also revealed that his responsibilities will include communicating directly with talent across WWE’s system, including those in NXT and even members of the main roster, to help gauge morale and provide support when needed.
“So as of right now it’s a little slow, but there are phone calls that are going to have to be made to make sure my job is done and it’s not just with indie talent. It’ll be NXT talent and it may mean main roster talent as well. I’m gonna go to Seattle for the next Monday Night Raw, talk with talent. Who knows, sometimes you need to talk to somebody to see how they’re feeling and maybe they want to go down to the PC and they wanna work on some stuff. The morale, if I can help make sure it’s still there in a good way, I want to be that guy,” he continued.
The comments help clarify speculation that had circulated in the weeks following Styles’ retirement about what his future with WWE would look like.