Former Superstar reveals that he tried to get WWE to hire AJ Styles in 2002
AJ Styles may be one of the most successful WWE Superstars over the last few years, but his arrival in the company may have happened much sooner had Hurricane Helms gotten his way back in 2002. Helms, commenting on Twitter, said that he went out of his way to try to get AJ Styles hired but failed to do so.
The .gif on Twitter shows a very young AJ Styles attempting a Shooting Star Press, only to miss his target. Helms capitalizes with a Vertebreaker and gets the win.
AJ Styles was a relative unknown at the time but had the skills to compete at the highest level. Hurricane Helms believed in him and was chastised by management for allowing the 'unknown' to do too much.
Hurricane Helms says that he knew how good AJ Styles was in 2002 and now is one of the 'best in the world.' As Helms noted, Styles has had an incredible journey. And most WWE fans would probably agree.
AJ Styles' journey actually started in WCW
AJ Styles began his 'phenomenal' journey in WCW, competing on WCW Thunder episodes and Monday Nitro. While his tenure with WCW was short due to its buyout by WWE, this led to tryouts and appearances in the company, including the match on Jakked with Hurricane Helms.
With that said, AJ Styles eventually found his way to the WWE, where he became known as 'the face that runs the place' and will go down as one of the better WWE Superstars of his generation.