If you’re a day one ish AJ Styles fan, you probably cheered him in the WCW cruiserweight tag team division as one half of “Air Raid” with his partner, Air Paris. The two took dramatically different paths after WCW closed. Air Paris rejoined the Georgia independent circuit as a booker and wrestler. AJ Styles joined NWA TNA, eventually became the underappreciated face of the promotion, traveled to Japan, became the best wrestler in the entire world and eventually landed as an instant WWE mega star.
The best part of these divergent paths is that the members of Air Raid still keep in touch, and despite Styles now being one of the biggest and most recognizable pro wrestling stars in the world, he took a moment during a recent WWE live event to reunite with Paris, and share a special moment with his family.
I spoke to Air Paris about it, which is a sentence the 2001 version of me would’ve backflipped over.
“Long story short, my daughter is a huge WWE fan now. She loves AJ, and she loved him before she ever really knew our history, which is cool, because she wasn’t swayed by dad’s past. So fast forward to last night, a live event in Chattanooga. We didn’t tell her until yesterday afternoon that we got her tickets, and she was stoked! She made an AJ sign, and I texted it to him.”
“He said he’d be looking for her, and when he spotted her it made her day! She tripped out knowing AJ STYLES knew she was there. Then after the match, he made his way around the ring and came to us. The first thing he said was, ‘Fandango wanted to meet ya!’
Then we hugged like no time had passed, I introduced him to my little girl, Perri, and he signed and took pics with her. I told him I promised [NWA Wildside founder] Bill Behrens an Air Raid 20 years later pic and he popped. He said, “Love ya, bro,” and walked to the other fans, turned around and came back to my little girl and have her his wristbands. Her face was PRICELESS.
AJ has no reason to be as good a guy as he is, but he is. He really is the nicest guy in the business, and hasn’t let his huge success change him at all. He was happy to do that for my kid, and it meant so much to her.
How great is that? It does a dying-era WCW fan’s heart like mine good. You don’t see Elix Skipper and Kid Romeo reuniting and being bros 20 years later. And even if you’ve never seen Air Raid before, it’s great to see stories like this of pro wrestling stars not being changed by fame, and being gracious and cool to the people who were around when they were getting started.
Here’s some Air Raid stuff if you haven’t seen it, by the way:
So who do I have to talk to to get Air Paris vs. EZ Money in the next Cruiserweight Classic?
