On last week’s episode of WWE SmackDown, AJ Styles teased his retirement before he swerved Undisputed WWE Champion Cody Rhodes by attacking him.
Many have pointed to Mark Henry’s fake retirement in the early 2010s as the inspiration behind the segment. Henry discussed the segment in a recent interview with Sean Ross Sapp. He said,
“I loved it. I feel a sense of pride when I’m being honored, and WrestleMania, Bianca Belair did a Mark Henry spot and walked up the steps and pressed her opponent into the ring. Whenever people do stuff like that, Braun Strowman did it several times, I just feel a sense of accomplishment. You feel like a proud papa, and I got a text message from AJ Styles saying, ‘Man, I hope I made you proud.’ It made my eyes well up. So having an effect on people, it’s sometimes greater than you doing it yourself. I don’t know if I explained that properly. I felt in my heart enough to make me tear up, so that was pretty damn special.”