AJ Styles and Xavier Woods have a long history together.
At IMPACT/TNA Bound For Glory 2007, Xavier Woods (Rasheed Lucius Creed/Austin Creed) was a replacement for Pacman Jones to team with R-Truth (Ron Killings) in a bout against AJ Styles & Tomko.
The bout earned Woods a contract with IMPACT, and it was thanks to a recommendation by Styles.
"I was in college, I was a senior, and my goal was to try to get a contract with a major wrestling organization before I graduated. I ended up getting a shot on a big show because a guy by the name of AJ Styles vouched for me. He vouched for me, and I was in this match, sight unseen, and they let me wrestle on TV on the largest show of the year for them and I was in the first match against AJ and his tag team partner, and I was teaming with R-Truth. After that, I got a contract, and I hit my goal. I was a contracted TV wrestler before I graduated college because AJ took a chance on me," Woods recalled in an interview on Celebrity Jobber with Jeff Zito.
Asked why AJ decided to take a chance on him, Woods said, "One of my good friends, Sal Rinauro, he hit me up and said, 'AJ has been in a tag team for a minute, he wants to go back to singles and get in ring shape for that. Do you want to come train with us?' It was about two hours from where I was. I asked my boss, I worked in a daycare at the time, she knew how much I wanted to be a wrestler. She gave me the week off work, and I went up there every day and we worked out for four or five hours each day. After that, he called me up and said, 'Are you busy this weekend?' 'No.' He got me on the show and we went from there. It's nothing but love to AJ."
Woods and Styles are now in WWE together, but on different brands with Woods on WWE Raw and Styles on WWE SmackDown.
Woods has not competed since the May 15 episode of WWE Raw.
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