-The following is an excerpt from an interview IGN.com did with Hulk Hogan on January 15th regarding Hogan's take on AJ Styles:

IGN: Across the board, people loved the AJ Styles - Kurt Angle match from the Monday Impact. How do you feel about the new modern-era wrestling match? A lot of times it's not the traditional heel/babyface match and there's a lot more back and forth. They move a lot faster. Do you think they need to slow down to "tell the story" more?

Hogan: On TV, the storylines have to move quicker. You've got the whole universe now. You can go all over cable and satellite channels to find stuff. Before, back in the day you only had a handful of choices since there were only so many channels. But those high-impact matches – and that's why I've talked about breathing super-life into these characters. You can go out there and have 5-star matches all day long. And I love AJ Styles to death, don't get me wrong. But Arn Anderson, Tully Blanchard, Jack Briscoe, Harley Race, AJ Styles all gave 5 star matches and now (holds hand up to head) this is the water level now. When the water level rises and TNA is the number one sports entertainment company in the world, if you keep having those 5 star matches like that and you don't do the cross-over media and we don't have Leno or Regis calling AJ Styles instead of me then people that are having those crazy, unbelievable off-the-chart matches are going to be mid-card at best. Because when you get guys who do the Junkyard Dog thing, or cross-over with Cyndi Lauper, or The Rock Stuff and the Stone Cold Steve Austin or Hulk Hogan stuff. Those 5-star matches are going to fall way below that line of entertainment that we want to achieve.

 

Hogan: I had a long talk with AJ Styles and he's got some magic in him. You've got the whole Hulk Hogan-philosophy of "the best wrestler is the guy who brings in millions of dollars and puts butts in seats" and then there's the philosophy that best wrestler is the guy who can grab a hold the stiffest. Somewhere in the middle, this is a business and it's about generating revenue. And AJ has that magic and no one's pulled it out of him yet. I had a couple long talks with him and he's got it, bro. He really does. That whole AJ Styles character – if you just have to put bit of an edge on it and ramp it up. I want everyone to know who he is and not just 75% of the people or maybe half of the people. Those matches have a great place, but those matches - those 5-star matches combined with breathing life into the characters will just be the icing on the cake. But you have to have that.

Hogan had more to say about TNA's plan going forward, Vince McMahon and the industry as a whole and can be read at IGN.com