AJ Styles got almost everything he could’ve wanted out of professional wrestling. But now that his career is over, there’s one hometown moment he wishes he’d gotten before walking away: wrestling at WrestleMania in Atlanta.
While speaking on the Game Day Greats podcast, Styles was discussing what it’s like performing inside enormous stadiums when he remembered WrestleMania 32 at AT&T Stadium. The building was so massive that Styles couldn’t hear the crowd properly during his match with Chris Jericho and briefly wondered whether they were bombing.
“Yeah. It went straight up and out where I was like, ‘Oh man, this match must suck.’ And then you’re watching it back, oh, they were responding. I just couldn’t hear them, you know.”
That eventually brought the conversation around to WrestleMania returning to Atlanta. One of the hosts admitted WrestleMania was the only one of WWE’s traditional Big Four events he’d never attended. Styles jokingly suggested making the trip to Saudi Arabia, only for the host to shoot that idea down and ask the question Styles himself had apparently been wondering for years: why not Atlanta?
“I wondered myself. I was—I was hoping that I have the opportunity to wrestle in Atlanta. Never did. We—we one time—we—WrestleMania has been in Atlanta. I don’t know what the deal is, man. I don’t know.”
For Styles, that opportunity is gone now. Atlanta is particularly meaningful because Styles is a Georgia native and spent years becoming one of the biggest wrestling stars associated with the state. WWE previously brought WrestleMania to Atlanta for WrestleMania 27 in 2011, but that happened years before Styles finally arrived in WWE.
By the time Styles debuted at the 2016 Royal Rumble, WrestleMania had moved on to other stadiums—and it never made its way back to Atlanta during the remainder of his career. Instead, Styles’ final stop came thousands of miles away in Saudi Arabia at the 2026 Royal Rumble.
“Saudi Arabia, that’s where I ended my career.”
Styles wrestled at WrestleMania, became WWE Champion and spent a decade working on WWE’s biggest stages. The one stage he never got was the one sitting in his own backyard.
Atlanta already had its WrestleMania. AJ Styles just arrived five years too late to be part of it—and by the time his career ended in Saudi Arabia, WWE had never brought it back.
Would you have liked to see AJ Styles get one WrestleMania match in Atlanta before retiring? Let us know in the comments.
Please credit Ringside News if you use the above transcript in your publication.
