{"id":8777,"date":"2016-03-28T13:03:26","date_gmt":"2016-03-28T18:03:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/?p=8777"},"modified":"2016-03-28T13:59:41","modified_gmt":"2016-03-28T18:59:41","slug":"8777","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/2016\/03\/28\/8777\/","title":{"rendered":"A.J. Styles discusses pre-WWE negotiations with &#8220;people I was going to sign with,&#8221; how Triple H landed him for WWE"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"pwtor-2251390410\" class=\"pwtor-before-content pwtor-entity-placement\"><hr \/><b>SPOTLIGHTED PODCAST ALERT (YOUR ARTICLE BEGINS A FEW INCHES DOWN)... <\/b>\r\n\r\n<iframe src=\"https:\/\/widget.spreaker.com\/player?show_id=3076978&theme=light&playlist=false&playlist-continuous=false&autoplay=false&live-autoplay=false&chapters-image=true&episode_image_position=right&hide-logo=false&hide-likes=false&hide-comments=false&hide-sharing=false&hide-download=true\" width=\"100%\" height=\"140px\" frameborder=\"0\"><\/iframe>\r\n<hr \/><\/div><p><strong>March 28 Update:\u00a0<\/strong>A.J. Styles spoke in generalities about his negotiations with TNA and WWE when he was looking to begin a new chapter in his career after an international run in New Japan.<\/p>\n<p>Included was Styles indirectly responding to what TNA put out in January about negotiations with Styles before WWE entered the picture.<\/p>\n<p class=\"float-with-ad\">&#8220;I had some opportunities coming up with people I was going to sign with,&#8221; Styles was quoted by <a href=\"http:\/\/www.digitalspy.com\/tv\/wwe\/news\/a788381\/aj-styles-wants-ex-tna-wrestlers-bobby-roode-and-eric-young-to-come-to-the-wwe\/\" target=\"_blank\">DigitalSpy.com<\/a>.\u00a0&#8220;I thought, &#8216;Well, you know what? There&#8217;s been some talk on the Internet and I&#8217;ll just go and give WWE a call and see what&#8217;s up.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"float-with-ad\">&#8220;One thing led to another, the ball started rolling pretty quick once it got started, and me and Triple H got it done.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"float-with-ad\">Styles also commented on his first full-time experience in WWE.\u00a0&#8220;The main difference is that it&#8217;s very professional here in the WWE. Not that they weren&#8217;t professional before, but there&#8217;s little things,&#8221; Styles said.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The little things that make things work so much smoother and better are done very well in the WWE. That&#8217;s the biggest thing.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><strong>January 22 Report<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>One of the biggest stories of 2016 has a new twist after TNA released a timeline of events surrounding negotiations with the Bullet Club trio of A.J. Styles, Karl Anderson, and Doc Gallows.<\/p><div id=\"pwtor-3709137509\" class=\"pwtor-content pwtor-entity-placement\"><div align=\"center\" data-freestar-ad=\"__336x280 __336x280\" id=\"pwtorchcom_test_300x250\">\r\n  <script data-cfasync=\"false\" type=\"text\/javascript\">\r\n    freestar.config.enabled_slots.push({ placementName: \"pwtorchcom_test_300x250\", slotId: \"pwtorchcom_test_300x250\" });\r\n  <\/script>\r\n<\/div><\/div>\n<p>Styles, Anderson, and Gallows are heading to WWE, prompting TNA to <a href=\"http:\/\/www.tnawrestling.com\/Search-Listing\/item\/6977-AJ-Styles\" target=\"_blank\">release detailed information on their talks with the trio on Friday (Jan. 22)<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Timeline of Events<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>&#8211; Mid-2015: TNA says they were involved in &#8220;serious discussions&#8221; with former TNA headliner\u00a0A.J. Styles over\u00a0a period of &#8220;several months&#8221; when Styles was a free agent.<\/p>\n<p>&#8211; End of 2015: TNA says &#8220;creative discussions escalated&#8221; with\u00a0Styles, who then brought his Bullet Club partners Karl Anderson and Doc Gallows (formerly Doc in Aces &amp; Eights in TNA) into the discussions.<\/p>\n<p>&#8211; December 14: Styles, Anderson, and Gallows attended a meeting at Dixie Carter&#8217;s home in Nashville. TNA says &#8220;a handshake and written deal between\u00a0A.J., (Doc), (Anderson), and TNA was agreed upon and signed by all.&#8221; TNA added that talks advanced to the point where &#8220;start dates were determined, creative decided, merchandise designed, and plane tickets purchased.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>TNA says lawyers &#8220;finalized the long-form agreement&#8221; over the Christmas holiday at the end of December. TNA says around this point, &#8220;all communication with TNA stopped.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The proposed contracts\u00a0were believed to be lucrative multi-year deals in harmony with\u00a0TNA&#8217;s new TV deal with Pop TV. However, the key is that talks\u00a0did not get to the final step of finalizing\u00a0the contracts after\u00a0both sides signed an agreement.<\/p>\n<p>&#8211; The next step, which TNA did not attach a date to, was A.J.&#8217;s side contacted TNA and said &#8220;the wrestlers had changed their mind and would not be honoring their commitment to TNA.&#8221;<\/p><div id=\"pwtor-569926527\" class=\"pwtor-content-1 pwtor-entity-placement\"><!-- Tag ID: pwtorchcom_test_300x600 -->\r\n<div align=\"center\" data-freestar-ad=\"__336x280 __300x600\" id=\"pwtorchcom_test_300x600\">\r\n  <script data-cfasync=\"false\" type=\"text\/javascript\">\r\n    freestar.config.enabled_slots.push({ placementName: \"pwtorchcom_test_300x600\", slotId: \"pwtorchcom_test_300x600\" });\r\n  <\/script>\r\n<\/div><\/div>\n<p>Again, the two sides had finalized agreements, but not contracts.\u00a0A.J.&#8217;s camp\u00a0told PWTorch on January 5 that A.J. had not signed a contract with any company.<\/p>\n<p>&#8211; During the negotiation period, A.J., Anderson, and Gallows were talking to WWE. It appears that WWE topped TNA&#8217;s offer, sending the trio to WWE.<\/p>\n<p>TNA decided to release details on their negotiations\u00a0to indicate that the company\u00a0had resources to offer\u00a0a significant package to the trio, but they opted to take WWE&#8217;s offer, which <a href=\"http:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/2016\/01\/16\/pwtorch-report-how-a-j-styles-ended-up-in-wwe\/\" target=\"_blank\">we reported earlier this week was a &#8220;blow-away deal.&#8221;<\/a><\/p>\n<p>TNA&#8217;s publicly-stated motivation for releasing the information was because &#8220;fans have asked for the status and wrestling media have made numerous inquiries.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>On the WWE side of the events, it&#8217;s unclear what\u00a0WWE knew about the trio&#8217;s talks with TNA.<\/p>\n<p>Styles, Anderson, and Gallows were also wrestling for Ring of Honor and New Japan at the time of their free agency negotiations.\u00a0After Styles finished up with New Japan at the Tokyo Dome Show on January 4 and New Year&#8217;s Dash show on Jan. 5, WWE began floating teasers on their website and through social media that\u00a0the Bullet Club\u00a0wrestlers, along with New Japan star Shinsuke Nakamura, were coming to WWE.<\/p>\n<div class=\"pwtor-end-article-groups pwtor-entity-placement\" id=\"pwtor-1461949304\"><div id=\"pwtor-33573226\"><div align=\"center\" data-freestar-ad=\"__336x280\" id=\"pwtorchcom_medrec_3\">\r\n  <script data-cfasync=\"false\" type=\"text\/javascript\">\r\n    freestar.config.enabled_slots.push({ placementName: \"pwtorchcom_medrec_3\", slotId: \"pwtorchcom_medrec_3\" });\r\n  <\/script>\r\n<\/div>\r\n\r\nTHANK YOU FOR VISITING<\/div><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<div class=\"mh-excerpt\"><p>March 28 Update:\u00a0A.J. Styles spoke in generalities about his negotiations with TNA and WWE when he was looking to begin a new chapter in his career after an international run in New Japan. Included was <a class=\"mh-excerpt-more\" href=\"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/2016\/03\/28\/8777\/\" title=\"A.J. Styles discusses pre-WWE negotiations with &#8220;people I was going to sign with,&#8221; how Triple H landed him for WWE\">[&#8230;]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1428,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"episode_type":"","audio_file":"","podmotor_file_id":"","podmotor_episode_id":"","cover_image":"","cover_image_id":"","duration":"","filesize":"","filesize_raw":"","date_recorded":"","explicit":"","block":"","itunes_episode_number":"","itunes_title":"","itunes_season_number":"","itunes_episode_type":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,5,4,3],"tags":[90,547,1570,309,167,120,71],"class_list":["post-8777","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news_japan","category-news_roh","category-news_tna","category-news_wwe","tag-aj-styles","tag-dixie-carter","tag-doc-gallows","tag-karl-anderson","tag-roh","tag-tna","tag-wwe"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/10\/StylesAJhood_3x2.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8777","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8777"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8777\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14422,"href":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8777\/revisions\/14422"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1428"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8777"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8777"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pwtorch.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8777"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}