Avery Styles is headed to his dad’s old stomping grounds. TNA Wrestling confirmed the 19-year-old will appear at TNA Lockdown this Sunday, August 23, in Chicago, though the promotion hasn’t yet said whether he’ll actually compete or show up in a non-wrestling capacity.
It’s a fitting landing spot. AJ Styles spent 2002 to 2014 in TNA, winning the TNA World Championship, the X Division Championship, and tag team gold multiple times over, before he ever set foot in WWE. Now his son gets his own shot at the company that made his father’s name, at an event built entirely around steel cage matches for the first time since 2016.
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The Drama That Almost Overshadowed the Debut
The timing matters, because two weeks ago this wasn’t the story anyone was telling about Avery Styles. After Natalya spoke positively about his attitude following a GCW appearance in Minnesota, independent wrestler and event producer Arik Cannon pushed back hard on X, claiming Avery ducked out on helping with the show.
“A 20+ year vet & promoter asked him to help w/ the chairs. TWICE! Instead of helping, he hid in the locker room until everything was done,” Cannon wrote, according to F4W/WON.
AJ Styles wasn’t going to let that sit. He fired back that his son was booked to wrestle, not to set up and tear down the ring. “You don’t ask someone to have dinner at your house and have them do the dishes. He was asked to wrestle at GCW,” he wrote, adding that Avery and fellow wrestler Marcus Mathers were never actually told anyone expected their help.
Everyone From Cody Rhodes to Kevin Nash Talked Him Off the Ledge
The back and forth pulled in most of the wrestling world. GCW itself issued a statement clarifying that Cannon “does not speak for GCW, he speaks for himself,” per 411Mania.
Cody Rhodes chimed in with “no shade intended” toward Cannon, writing that “his father was paying dues and making sacrifices throughout that young man’s youth that some people may never understand,” according to Wrestling Inc.
Kevin Nash went further, telling it straight: “I think AJ paid enough dues to where his son’s piggy bank is full. He’s paying his dues on the canvas. That’s where you pay your dues, man,” per Wrestlezone. Nash also made the practical point that handing ring-rigging duties to an untrained 19-year-old is more of a liability question than a respect one.
Even AJ Admits It Got Bigger Than It Needed To
By the time the dust settled, even AJ Styles was ready to call it overblown. Speaking on his own podcast, he walked back some of the heat he’d brought to it himself. “It shouldn’t have blown up like this. Be honest with you. It should have been two guys talking to each other like adults,” he said, according to POST Wrestling.
That’s about where it’s stayed since. No promotion sided with Cannon’s version over GCW’s own clarification, and the loudest voices in the aftermath, from Rhodes to Nash, landed on the same point: a kid who’s wrestled professionally since June isn’t the one who needed to prove he belonged.
Now He’s Walking Into His Dad’s Old Building
Avery Styles made his pro debut on June 26 against Ashton Martin, then followed it with a GCW win by spiral tap in July. TNA Lockdown would be his biggest stage yet, cage matches and all, and it comes with a rare bit of symmetry: the son making his mark in the exact company where his father first became “Phenomenal.”
