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AJ Styles reacts to Mike Santana’s arrival in NXT

Posted: Jul 25th 2026 By: Vincent Verhei

AJ Styles and Mike Santana are both former TNA World Champions who are now working for NXT. Which, it turns out, came as a surprise to Styles.

Styles talked about this week’s episode of NXT on his Phenomenally Retro Podcast. He had been the producer for the Tony D’Angelo-Naraku street fight main event. After D’Angelo’s victory, Santana came out through the crowd to his old TNA theme and posed among the fans.

“The thing is, Mike came out at the end of the match, where Tony is holding up the [NXT] Heavyweight Championship,” Styles explained. “Mike comes to the back, I said, ‘What’s up, bro? Good to see you. I hope you’re doing well. Where are we doing this? We’re doing this in TNA? Are we doing this here in NXT?’”

Santana then explained to Styles that he had signed with NXT after his deal with TNA had expired.

“He goes, ‘No dude, you don’t understand. I’m here now.’ I was like, ‘Oh wow. We got you.’ So it was pretty cool man. I’m looking forward to seeing what he’s going to do next.”

Santana had been part of the TNA roster since 2024. He made several appearances on NXT last fall as part of the interpromotional feud between the two brands. He dropped the TNA World Championship to Nic Nemeth at Slammiversary on June 28, and his contract there expired a few weeks later.

NXT announcer Vic Joseph went out of his way to not mention Santana’s name on NXT this week, so it seems likely that the wrestler will be getting a new name soon.