Arik Cannon has found a new witness in his case against Avery Styles: 82-year-old Jimmy Hart. Just when it looked like Cannon’s war with AJ Styles over whether his son should help tear down independent wrestling shows couldn’t get any stranger, Cannon dragged the WWE Hall of Famer into it by pointing out that even The Mouth of the South helps with chairs.
Cannon took to Twitter and uploaded a photo showing Hart handling chairs after a wrestling event, using it as another shot at Avery following their increasingly ugly argument over “paying your dues.”
The message was pretty hard to miss. If Jimmy Hart can help with chairs after decades in the wrestling business, Cannon clearly doesn’t think AJ Styles’ son should be above doing the same thing. And yes, this entire controversy is still about chairs.
It started after Cannon accused Avery of avoiding setup and teardown work at a GCW event in Minneapolis. AJ immediately came to his son’s defense, arguing Avery had been booked and paid to wrestle—not work ring crew—and eventually called Cannon a “jealous douche.”
Cannon wasn’t backing down. He claimed Avery had been asked multiple times to help with chairs before disappearing into the locker room until the work was finished. When AJ’s fans flooded Cannon’s notifications, he went after them too.
“The only downside to having an online interaction with someone like AJ Styles is his following. His followers. My notifications are currently filled with quite literally the dumbest, most ignorant segment of pro wrestling fandom.”
Cannon’s tweet doesn’t change AJ’s argument that Avery was hired to wrestle rather than work ring crew. It does, however, make Cannon’s position painfully obvious: he doesn’t care how famous you are, who your father is or how long you’ve been in wrestling. If a WWE Hall of Famer can help with the chairs, so can you.
Avery Styles probably didn’t expect one night at GCW to end with his work ethic being compared to Jimmy Hart’s. Yet here we are.
Do you think Arik Cannon made his point by bringing Jimmy Hart into the Avery Styles controversy, or has this whole argument gone way too far? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.
