AJ Styles has been looking to decompress with family and friends since his long trip back from Saudi Arabia after WWE Crown Jewel and saddled up on his Mixer channel to play some video games (Player Unknown’s Battlegrounds to be exact). Before he got the gaming underway, Styles addressed the Saudi plane situation in which the majority of talent was held over an extra 24 hours. Styles was one of those individuals and shared his experience on the matter that is making waves among the wrestling media, and The Phenomenal One even spoke with the pilot.
“We were supposed to leave after the show. We got to the airport, they weren’t letting us board. What was the problem? Not real sure, I heard there was a field truck in the way and the guy who drove the fuel truck had left to go home. I know, this makes no sense. Why would the fuel guy – why would he leave if he knows that he’s got a plan that’s leaving? Doesn’t make much sense.
“Then there was some paperwork issues and then finally after at least four or five hours we get on the plane, then they found something going on with the fuel something-or-nother was broken. Now, people can say what they want, ‘No it wasn’t broken, I don’t know,’ but I talked to the pilot. On that 14 hour flight, the pilot – I guess they take naps too – and so he came out we were all chatting, sitting around on this flight, talking.”
The pilot told him that there was a major layover due to the fact that the flight and crew on staff weren’t able to work a full 24 hours so their shifts had timed out, furthering the delay for the talent. Styles then makes it clear that no lives were threatened or no weapons were brandished.
“Were there guns? Did they come out and go ‘everybody off the plane!’ No, that never happened. My wife called me in a panic and she’s scared to death, I go, ‘Babe, listen, we’re just not able to go anywhere. It’s not a big issue. Nobody is threatening to kill us. There was none of that going on. Nobody was going to get murdered or anything like that. Any of that never happened. There was no threat of physical harm or anything like that. We just had to go and find a hotel. And I gotta tell ya, I had the best sleep of my life in this hotel, because I hadn’t slept because of jet lag.”
Styles also speaks on the rumored dispute between Vince McMahon and a Saudi prince, saying he has no idea what went on. All he knows that he had a job to and that the whole delay angered him particularly because he missed his son’s wrestling match, but it was something that was out of his control as well.
“It’s almost blown up to as if we were on the verge of being killed. That wasn’t the case. Now I don’t know what happened, I have no idea what happened with Vince and the Prince or the King or whoever is who was putting on the show, I have no idea what happened, but that’s not my job to say anything. My job is to go to work, my job is to get home – was I pretty angry about getting home because I missed my son’s wrestling match? You have no idea. You have no idea how angry I was, but if this is out of our hands, if it’s out of the pilot’s hands, then there’s nothing we can do. There’s no point in getting mad and getting angry about something I have no control of. So I’m home now, and I’m happy to be here. We’ll find out as we go along why things happened, or we won’t.”
Styles then closes out the candid talk that he doesn’t know what’s going t to happen going forward, but he’ll address it as it comes along and one thing he definitely won’t do is throw good people under the bus.
“I don’t know what’s going to happen going forward. It’s just gonna be what it’s gonna be and I’ll deal with it when I need to, but I’m not going to throw my WWE under the bus either. That’s not how I work. I’m a guy who’s committed to making the best product that I can and it’s not going to do me any good to throw good people under the bus. There’ are lot of good that work for WWE and I will not make them look bad. There were a lot of people that were on that plane with me. So til I know more, I’m not going to say anymore. I’m not going to say anything negative, that’s not who I am as a person and if I did find out and I was offended, I’d go to the source, believe me on that one.”
(Transcription credit should go to @DominicDeAngelo of WrestleZone)
You can watch Styles’ full stream below:
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