83 Weeks with Eric Bischoff - INTRODUCING: The Phenomenally Retro Podcast with AJ Styles

Episode Date: June 24, 2026

Conrad Thompson introduces you to The Phenomenally Retro Podcast with WWE Hall of Famer AJ Styles and Tony Giles. Each week, AJ pulls back the curtain on his legendary career, talks about what's happening in wrestling right now, shares stories from the road, behind-the-scenes insight, and talks about one of his biggest passions, retro gaming. Be sure to follow The Phenomenally Retro podcast wherever you listen to podcasts and subscribe to the YouTube page at The Phenomenally Retro Podcast - YouTube

Hey, hey, it's Conrad Thompson, and I want to take a minute to make sure you know about a podcast. I think you're really going to dig. It's called the phenomenally retro podcast, and it's hosted by none other than WWB Grand Slam Champion and Hall of Famer AJ Styles and his longtime-time friend, Tony Giles. Each week, AJ pulls back the curtain on his legendary career and talks about what's happening in wrestling right now. The guy share stories from the road, behind-the-scenes insight, and they even mix in some retro gaming, too, because if you know AJ, you know that's one of his true passions.

Coming up, we got a clip of the show for you, and if you like what you hear, go subscribe to the phenomenally retro podcast on Apple Podcast, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcast. And don't forget, full video episodes are available now for free on YouTube. Just search for the phenomenally retro podcast with AJ Styles and subscribe to their channel. So with that said, here's AJ and Tony on the phenomenally retro podcast. Well, a question here from Fire Leaser. Where did phenomenal originate from? That happened in NWA Wildside.

And one of the commentators, Dan the Dragon Wilson, he just said the phenomenal A.J. Stiles. And it stuck. It stuck. I didn't give myself the name. He gave it to me. And again, it stuck. At first, I didn't know what to think of it,

but after the fact, you know, after the fact, I was like, you know, it's kind of, kind of flows. I didn't like having phenomenal because I didn't like writing it all out the whole. It's a long word. So, but, but I hope I served it well. I hope I served phenomenal well. Always joke around with people and they go, oh, that's phenomenal. Like, oh, you owe me a nickel. Yeah.

It's copyrighted. So the following week, I'm going to go down and spend a lot of time. Just, you know, being involved, man. doing my job that I actually enjoy doing. That's cool. How are you adjusting to, you're not a trainer at Evolve? I mean, what do you, what do you think you are when you're at Evolve? Well, when I'm at Evolve, I am, I will produce a match if you need me to.

I can do that, which is what I did. I produced more than one match, did two of them actually. I enjoy it. I like doing that, the one, all these hours. ideas and it's good for evolve because we're taking our ID talent, putting them on the shows, show more cameras are, which is very important, and then while we do certain things. It is a tape show, of course, but I don't like redoing something. I'm not going to do that.

I think it's still get one shot to do it. But it just gets them ready for NXT whenever the time is that we call them up. It gets them ready. It's very important. evolves a very important show for the WWID crew. And we're able to throw NXT workers on that. Right. Tough question for you, AJ.

But what was your favorite crowd? Oh, my gosh. I mean, is it really hard for you to determine what my favorite crowd is? Probably not. I mean, I can't help. I can't help but love them. They made me feel like the biggest superstar on planet Earth. France.

Unbelievable. I don't know. I mean, again, I'm just thankful for a soccer song that had phenomenal in it. I think, but they made me feel like a million bucks. I would see England's always been great to me. Japan's always been great to me. So, of course, I'm excluding America who's always been good to me as well. Right, right.

But there are certain places on this planet that I was like, wow, that, that was, I mean, Canada is always great fans, too. So it's all over the world, man, wrestling fans. They may be a little bit different in the way that they cheer and do certain things, but it's always awesome to get any response. I am so proud of these guys because, man, what a freaking story. They were able to tell the blood, the masks being ripped off. Like, oh, so good, so good.

And just everything that's happened led to this. an unbelievable awesome match. I'm so happy for these guys. Chad Gable was the man. And El Grande Americano is El Grande Americano. You enjoyed AAA for the main event. I would say that was the, it was because of the story that has been built up for so long.

And everything that happened before that match wasn't going to happen. All we're going to have Grande Americano is wrestle because we don't know. and then we get it in exactly the match that we won and it wasn't just you excited it was the whole arena that wanted to see that match and it delivered because because they finished the story that's important the story was the most important thing and all i mean you get chad gable and el gran americanoly two guys i've been in the ring with personally and i know they can go i enjoyed working both those guys so they gave us the match that they were more than capable of doing and told the story and finished it at the same time mask was removed from chad gable's face a bloody one by the way

right yeah yeah can you show up that can you throw that picture again yeah yeah yeah what an iconic freaking photo what a great yeah yeah yeah this is going to be one of those pictures that goes down in history is you know one of the great wrestling pictures it's such a cool picture i mean that's what you want to see. And look at Agrano-Americanos' hair sticking out where he had his mask. That's so good. That's so good.

So, yeah, man, I'm so proud of those guys. Because, again, you could put in a gimmick. Chad Gable got put in a gimmick that he probably wasn't excited about. Yeah. And then, I'm trying

not to say his name, but obviously, yeah, we know who it is. We know who it is. But I'm just going to keep it a lot. Yeah. El Grante Amerigano gets put in this position because Chad Gable got hurt. And so now there's two Ogronde Americanos. And they did such a fantastic.

And by they, W.W.E and AAA did a fantastic job of getting this story over. Yeah. I think a lot of the credit for this from what I'm reading is it goes to Mark Calloway or The Undertaker. he's down there now in AAA and clearly if he is what is making this stuff happen please never take him away

because I think it's organic I think that's just I love Mark and I think he's doing a fantastic job I really do like he's not trying to change AAA

he's just trying to bring out the stories a little bit more he's not trying to change who they are as a company but just bring out the best and what they're doing I think he's doing a fantastic job. And the guys that are helping him,

it's not just Mark writing these stories. No, no, no, of course. And they're obviously that are helping with this. So we've got to give them credit too. And I'm sure he would as well. And then it's just organically happening. It's just things that are happening within the story of wrestling that just add to what they're doing.

I mean, sometimes all you have to do is this, like, okay, this is great. This is great for us. You know, unfortunately, circumstances that have happened and are a little scary, but this is at the same time, you know, sometimes,

what is it, what, I forget what the saying is, but no news is, what is the saying, you know what I'm saying, like, it doesn't matter what.

No news is good news. Just don't change it. Just let it breathe, let it go organically. You know, I get it. I do get it. My one concern now is, where do you go from here?

For Chad, at least. I mean, if we short, before, okay, so before the Grande Americano, he was, he was doing the he was doing Chad Gable and, yeah.

But before that he was sure to G and it's like, it's, hold on. Listen, hold on. You're worried about something that is long gone. That was an events era of things. I think, but you got to remember he was playing double duty. He was doing double duty. As El Grande Americano and Chad

Gable, he was doing both. Which is a lot. I think that's, you know, had to do maybe his shoulder getting damaged because of that. Yeah. And I get it. So I think he's got a bigger superstar that he's ever been at this very moment. And if we don't capitalize it. And I say we, because I'm part of WWW, we don't capitalize on this.

We're dumb. We're dummies. That is my one concern because it's not like it hasn't happened in the past where we've seen certain wrestlers come or have big moments and then none. nothing really happens. And, you know, I understand that Chad is not the tallest of guys. I get that. He has a look that is different, but he is an A-level.

He can have a great match with everybody, right? He can be heavyweight champion. He's a legit, freaking pro wrestler that there's no way somebody in the crowd's going, I think I could take freaking Chad cable. Right. Dude, legit, he will drop you on your head and there's nothing you can do about it. He will scoop you up and drop you. This guy is legit. And everything about him has look, his ability, everything about him is a scary, if you know anything about collegiate wrestling or pro wrestling. This guy can take care of business. So, yeah, no, he's legit. I don't care. It has nothing to do with his size. Someone said me this, and I have to read this because it is kind of funny.

L.A. Knight recalls brawling with AJ Stiles on WrestleMania 40 weekend. Do you remember this incident? Of course I do. I've tried to erase it out of my mind. It's not what I wanted to happen, mind you.

So essentially, the story is, obviously you and L.A. were going back both and you're having this few. You start to have this fight that was supposed to get broken up by security. But they didn't make up. No, it wasn't supposed to be broken up by security because we didn't know there was no security there to break up a fight. They didn't know it was going on.

I didn't know it was going to happen. So, yeah, it was not a good thing. It was not a good thing. Not a good thing. It's not what I wanted. So I don't know how much more I should say about that other than the fact that it wasn't planned. I don't want it to happen like that. I just wanted to remain a hill.

But then when Ellie Knight came over and headlocked me, uh, that's not good. That's not a good idea.