For a wrestler who only made his professional debut this past June, Avery Styles has received a lot of attention. Of course, being the son of a wrestling legend will do that, but so has some criticism for alleged entitled behavior.
As he’s made clear in the past, WWE NXT star Lexis King is not going to hear smack talk about Avery, and that perhaps has something to do with his own status as the son of Brian Pillman.
Now, Lexis has gone so far as to say he’d welcome Avery into the BirthRight faction
in NXT.
A brief recap of the “nepo baby” claims regarding Avery: In August, indie wrestler Arik Cannon responded to a story about Natalya praising 19-year-old Avery’s wrestling ability during a match at a GCW event.
“As someone who watched this kid skirt away from helping with a single thing at this very show…I’d just like to say: L O F’ING L !” Cannon wrote about Avery in a message posted on X (Twitter).
Avery’s father, The Phenomenal AJ Styles, responded directly to Cannon: “He was paid to wrestle at GCW, not help you put up and take down the ring. That sounds like your job. You just sound like a jealous douche.”
The back-and-forth continued between Arik and AJ for a bit, and Cannon began posting images of famous faces helping out ring crews, such as Jimmy Hart helping put away chairs.
When the controversy started by Cannon first broke out, King posted a defense of the younger Styles on X. He wrote that “people treat you differently when you are one of us [progeny of a star] and it’s not his fault. There’s a different type of baggage this boy carries, an expectation to live up to his father’s greatness that most will never understand.”
Lexis added that he personally had been “treated like royalty by everyone in the business until I walked into NXT and the leadership here humbled me and treated me like everyone else.”
On the Tuesday (September 22) episode of the Busted Open After Dark podcast, King was asked by host Bully Ray about the possibility of Avery, who is currently signed by TNA, being accepted into the BirthRight stable someday.
“Of course. I mean, have you seen the kid work?” King replied. “He’s phenomenal, no pun intended. He’s a very talented young man. He’s also very well-spoken, very respectful, was raised by someone who I admire, someone who I look up to, a very respectful man, a very incredible performer.
“So, the amount of discipline and the amount that it took AJ to get to that level, I guarantee that as much as he’s around his kid, his kid has absorbed every bit of that. That kid shaked every hand in NXT. I don’t know all these rumors about him not setting up the chairs. I think that’s all bullcrap.”
King went on to call himself a “piece of s**t” for not helping set up rings when he was on the indie circuit, because he had a “chip on my shoulder.” He added that perhaps he got a pass from people online, because he was young when his father died tragically.
Lexis is currently the leader of BirthRight, which is made up of Arianna Grace (Santino Marella’s daughter); Charlie Dempsey (William Regal’s son); Uriah Connors (Fit Finlay’s son); and Channing “Stacks” Lorenzo (Grace’s fiancé). He told Bully Ray that should Avery ever join the group, he may need to make some changes first.
“We’ve all got different names. We’ve got our own identities,” King said. “It allows us to completely step out and disregard the shadow of our parents, and I think if Avery came to BirthRight — he’s going to come to NXT — he can carve his own identity, create his own name, develop his own finish, his own offense. He’s incredibly talented.”
What do you think? Would you like to see Avery become a member of BirthRight? Would you like to see him carve a different path for himself instead? Let us know your thoughts in the comments.
