During a recent episode of the “Insight” podcast, AJ Styles shared an interesting story about Vince McMahon, the former Chairman of WWE. Styles recounted that McMahon totally dismissed his idea to produce a shirt amid his riveting feud with John Cena.
Styles had proposed a shirt design with the text, “Beat Up John Cena,” but McMahon outrightly rejected it. Styles recollected, “We tried to get a shirt made and Vince was like ‘Absolutely not.’ I was like ‘Why?’ But yeah we tried to get the shirt out there, he said absolutely not. I thought it was going to be good.”
Despite the failure to get the shirt approved, the catchphrase was effectively employed on television by Styles, Luke Gallows, and Karl Anderson. The feud ended with Styles clinching victories against Cena in two straight matches that took place at the events, Money In The Bank and SummerSlam, in that year.