AJ Styles’ WWE Career Ends; What it Means for Collectors
There were a lot of big moments at WWE’s Royal Rumble event in Riyah, Saudi Arabia. Roman Reigns won his second men’s Rumble and will face his long time in-ring and real life nemesis CM Punk to headline WrestleMania. On the women’s side of the card, Liv Morgan was victorious after being the runner up the year prior. However, the undercard was not without its drama. Fresh off defeating John Cena in his last match at Saturday Night’s Main Event, Gunther took on longtime star AJ Styles with Styles’ WWE career on the line.
After a back and forth match that featured several false finishes, Gunther eventually had his hand raised in victory after submitting Styles with a rear naked choke effectively ending Styles’ WWE career. After the match Styles teased the audience by symbolically removing his gloves before putting them back and saluting the crowd one last time as walked up the entrance ramp.
Related: Top 5 Liv Morgan Card Sales of 2025
What this means for collectors
Throughout his time in WWE AJ Styles has been a fixture in WWE collectibles since his debut in 2016. He’s had several autograph cards with both Topps and Panini as well as Mattel action figures. If Styles is in fact done with wrestling altogether, it would be fair to expect that his presence in trading cards and other such products be much less frequent perhaps causing some of his older collectibles to increase in value However, as the saying goes in professional wrestling that AJ Styles echoed himself, never say never to a return.
There’s also been some online speculation that Styles may continue his career outside of WWE, potentially with WWE’s partner TNA (possible) where he was their biggest star, New Japan Pro Wrestling (also possible) or rival company AEW (possible but significantly less likely). With this ambiguity does come some intrigue, so fans and collectors should continue to monitor what happens with Styles going forward.
