The Good Brothers, better known as Luke Gallows and Karl Anderson in WWE, were released by WWE last April. At the time, it sounded like Paul Heyman - who was then serving as RAW Executive Director - may have played a role in Vince McMahon's decision to let the duo go shortly after they signed new deals with the company, but that was never confirmed.
Of course, AJ Styles would later add fuel to the fire when he branded Heyman a "boldfaced liar," saying he moved to SmackDown because he "couldn’t stand looking at [him]."
Talking to Inside The Ropes, Heyman addressed these claims of backstage heat with Styles head on.
"AJ Styles has not said that we weren’t on the same page or that we clashed. AJ Styles has been quoted as blaming me for the departure from WWE of Luke Gallows and Karl Anderson. That is what AJ Styles has been quoted as saying. He has never made a statement regarding whether or not our collaboration on Monday Night RAW was to his liking or not - and if he wishes to, I’d be happy to accept whatever assessment he had on our time together behind the scenes."
"In terms of what AJ Styles said regarding the departure of Luke Gallows and Karl Anderson, I am still of the old school belief - that I would suggest is also a new school belief - what goes on behind those closed doors, in those creative meetings, as far as I’m concerned, is privileged conversation."
Heyman went on to say that "whatever happened between Gallows and Anderson happened behind the scenes, behind closed doors in a meeting that I’m not going to expose to the public because it was an inner sanctum meeting with the chairman of the board, Vincent Kennedy McMahon. And unless Vince wants to talk about it publicly, I’m not going to be the one to expose what happened, why, and what the other conversations were in that meeting."
This is a non-answer in some ways, but there are interesting nuggets of information to be found reading between the lines. Heyman clearly did meet with McMahon to discuss Gallows and Anderson's role in WWE, and considering what ridiculously high contracts they'd signed after talks with AEW, it probably didn't take much to convince the Chairman they weren't that valuable.
It will certainly be interesting to see if Styles chooses to respond; however, Heyman essentially challenging him to come out and make any other grievances he had with him know could be too tempting for the current RAW Tag Team Champion to avoid. Something tells us WWE would rather that not happen, though.
Stay tuned.