In a recent interview with SNS Radio Network’s Unplugged show, AJ Styles opened up about his time with TNA Impact Wrestling. A couple of the excerpts are below (along with the show’s full audio clip on YouTube), where AJ discussed the Ric Flair/Fortune era and the infamous Clare Lynch storyline:
AJ Styles on turning heel with Ric Flair and working with Fortune:
“I have no problems doing it. I think there is always a time to turn heel and who better to do it with than with Ric Flair. I have no problems working with Ric Flair but i think it was important for everyone to realize that I’m not Ric Flair. Wearing the robe was great but adding the hood on there made it better. I had a lot of fun with that.
I think the best stuff was with Fortune. The wacky stuff we were doing. I think the entertainment value went up. We had so much idea but not all of it made it. We were going to be different. Not just the four horsemen but a new age, a new horsemen. Not running around in suits in limos but wearing cool clothes and driving sports cars. We wanted to come off of a plane that had ‘Flair Force-1’ written on it. All of those crazy little things you can think of.
There was another time we talked about doing a spoof of the movie ‘the hangover’ where we wake up hungover and we go looking for Flair. James Storm is all hungover and he wakes up with his face face painted like a tiger. Just like those silly face paintings you get at a circus or something. And the hotel is trashed. Stuff like that.”
AJ Styles on the Clare Lynch Storyline:
“At first, I’m telling you this was supposed to be a great story. I helped bring it together and Frank and Chris helped bring it together. It fell apart when Clair Lynch was actually brought in. Clair Lynch was never supposed to be a friend of the family. Clair Lynch was supposed to be an irresistible smoking hot niece or something, like a distant relative. When the Dixie Carter stuff rolled on then AJ was the one who was supposed to sort of take care of her. When the allegations surface that AJ was banging Clair, the fans reaction was supposed to be ‘You know what, she is so hot that I’d bang her too’.
There were so many missing pieces to this that it just didn’t work. First thing was the friend of the family, well Who cares if she is just a friend. Second, she wasn’t hot, not remotely so you would never believe that i would touch her with a 10 foot pole. There were little things that wrecked everything. Plus the way she departed the company, I’m not too happy about that either. This could have been sort of like ‘The hand that rocks the cradle’ stuff. That could have been good.”
