AJ Styles comments on wrestling Shane McMahon at WrestleMania 33.
AJ Styles has wrestled a who's who of the wrestling industry in his handful of appearances at WrestleMania. He first debuted at the event in 2016, where he faced Chris Jericho in Dallas, Texas. However, his second WrestleMania match was against Shane McMahon. Going into the event in Orlando, Florida, in 2017, some skeptics questioned whether or not Styles would be able to have a high-quality match with the son of Vince McMahon.
Speaking about the match with Chris Van Vliet on Insight, Styles praised McMahon for his dedication to the craft and said that even The Undertaker would agree that no one is more dedicated to perfection.
"Oh, I've had some matchups in the past where you thought, 'Nah, I don't know about this one. A perfect example: No one thought that me and Shane McMahon were gonna have a good match," he said. "I thought we did a very good job of making that very entertaining. Had some moments in there that are really cool. I had the opportunity to work Shane McMahon. An awesome guy, freaking love him. No one is more dedicated to perfection than Shane McMahon. Ask The Undertaker, he'll tell you, and I respect the heck out of that. The stuff that he does. He's still doing a Shooting Star Press. Are you kidding me? He beats himself up. Man, I have so much respect for Shane. I freaking love him. That was a great match.
"He just wanted to perfect it, whatever we were doing. He wanted to make sure it was spot-on every time, and you got to respect that. I mean, that's what I want. Then, to be able to bounce some stuff off of him that — the guy could fight for real, you know? So we were able to put a little bit of that stuff that he knew, a little bit of Jiu Jitsu that he's taken, and make it work. It was really a fun match, man. It was really unexpected, I think, for fans to see us have such a good match together," he added.
Elsewhere in this interview, AJ Styles speaks about how Vince McMahon wasn't familiar with his work from TNA because Vince didn't watch any wrestling outside of WWE. Read more about that and AJ's desire to work with TNA for a one-off in 2025 here.
Shane McMahon has not been seen on WWE TV since tearing his quad at WrestleMania 39. Most recently, he was seen at the Senate confirmation hearing for his mother, Linda McMahon.
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