Former WWE superstar Simon Dean was recently a guest on Pancakes and Powerslams. He worked with AJ Styles in the World Wrestling All-Stars promotion (2001-2003), it was one of many promotions that set up in the wake of the demise of WCW and ECW.

Dean revealed that Styles declined an initial offer to join WWE back then because TNA who were just starting out at the time offered to build the company around him.

“I was right there for it. It was me and AJ. We were in Australia doing a tour for World Wrestling All-Stars. I told him I had been signed by WWE. They had a tryout in Cincinnati and he had went to that. I thought I was going to have to go to that, and I didn’t, I went right through it. In Cincinnati, he’d told me basically, after the tour in Australia we’d come back, and they had a [show] in Vegas.

“Bob Ryder and Jeff Jarrett had come up to me, and they told me that they were launching this new company called TNA. I told them that I had just signed with WWE, and I want to give it a shot. They wanted me to come to TNA, and they wanted to build the company around AJ. So, it’s not that AJ never wanted to go to the WWE, it was just that the offer was never right for AJ to come to WWE.”