Do you want to see AJ Styles dethroned?

[DNA 2.0]

I wouldn't mind if AJ Styles kept the WWE Championship forever. There's really no point in having him lose the belt either. Maybe he could lose it for a while to Samoa Joe and regain it after that, just to give Joe some extra credit. But other than that, who else is there to beat Styles? Styles vs Bryan for the WWE Championship is the match that should main event Wrestlemania 35.

[#AbsoluteUnit]

No. However, he is by far the #1 guy right now on the blue show. A.J. is awesome, no doubt. I get he'll lose his title at some point, yet, AJ is awesome. He's much better as a face than a heel, and at his age, like is mantra, is simply Phenomenal.

[Y 2 Jake]

Hate to say it but Styles has been poor for a year now. The sooner he drops the belt the better.

[jmt225]

I don't want to see him drop it to Rusev, no.

But if he loses it to Samoa Joe in a killer match at Summerslam, I'd be fine with that. Then Joe could drop it to Bryan in a few months, and then Bryan could have his big blow off match with Miz (Royal Rumble winner?) at Wrestlemania.

That's the ideal booking scenario IMO.

[BestSportsEntertainer]

As others have said, I wanna see Samoa Joe beat Styles and win the title at SummerSlam. Joe is one of my favorite wrestlers in WWE, mainly because he has one of the most believable characters.

He needs to be world champion soon because he's already 39. His age hasn't caught up with him yet, but he's not someone you can put off winning for another 2-3 years.

[Jack-Hammer]

If rumors going about turn out to be true, then Styles will continue to be champ for quite a while.

There are reports going about that Styles could remain WWE Champion all the way up to WrestleMania XXXV next year. Company officials, including Vince McMahon, are really high on Styles for the quality of his work, his work ethic and other factors, but another reason why Styles might remain champion is because he's the cover Superstar for WWE 2K19. As a result, WWE officials intend to heavily promote and hype Styles and, if I'm not mistaken, the game isn't due to his stores until early October, which is about the same time frame as the release of precious WWE 2K games. The cover star of the games always get heavily promoted, so don't be surprised if Styles current run makes it past the 1 year mark.

If he does remain champion until WrestleMania next year, his 2nd run as champ will have lasted 515 days, smoking CM Punk's 434 day run as the longest WWE Championshp reign since Hulk Hogan's first began in 1984. If Brock Lesnar drops the Universal Championship at SummerSlam, his run will be 503 day and the rumors are accurate and plans don't change, then Styles could be the longest World Champion in WWE since Hulk Hogan.

If this turns out to be true, then it's hard to complain considering how good Styles is. I have trouble believing, however, that he'll be champ all the way to WrestleMania though it'd be cool with me if he did.

[BestSportsEntertainer]

Hate to say it but Styles has been poor for a year now. The sooner he drops the belt the better.

In all seriousness, I agree. Most people won't but Styles hasn't been all that great since WrestleMania 33. What has he done?

- Has a disappointing feud with Owens.
- Has a forgettable feud with Corbin.
- Dethrones Jinder
- Has a couple of really good matches with Balor and Lesnar
- Has a couple of good defenses against Owens and Zayn. However he was more of an afterthought while the whole thing was built around Shane McMahon
- Has good feud with Nakamura but even it was kinda disappointing. 3 out of their 4 matches on PPV weren't that great
- And he's done all of this while having a boring character and being just okay on the mic

Compare that to 2016 where he had excellent feuds with Jericho, Reigns, Cena, and Ambrose, while having tremendous character work and promos each week.

Maybe expectations are too high. Maybe his booking has been subpar. However I don't think it's wrong to say Styles hasn't been too great for the past year

[DNA 2.0]

Hate to say it but Styles has been poor for a year now. The sooner he drops the belt the better.


In all seriousness, I agree. Most people won't but Styles hasn't been all that great since WrestleMania 33. What has he done?

- Has a disappointing feud with Owens.
- Has a forgettable feud with Corbin.
- Dethrones Jinder
- Has a couple of really good matches with Balor and Lesnar
- Has a couple of good defenses against Owens and Zayn. However he was more of an afterthought while the whole thing was built around Shane McMahon
- Has good feud with Nakamura but even it was kinda disappointing. 3 out of their 4 matches on PPV weren't that great
- And he's done all of this while having a boring character and being just okay on the mic

Compare that to 2016 where he had excellent feuds with Jericho, Reigns, Cena, and Ambrose, while having tremendous character work and promos each week.

Maybe expectations are too high. Maybe his booking has been subpar. However I don't think it's wrong to say Styles hasn't been too great for the past year

Really guys? I mean... c'mon...
First of all we have two different AJ Styles. One was a heel one was a face.
Secondly, Smackdown had different writing teams in each occasion. Smackdown as a whole was a great show in 2016 and Smackdown as a whole was a shit show in 2017.
Thirdly, Owens' character from going to brutal murderous prick to Mr. Canada in a suit was just... bad. The feud was ok, but both men were phoning it and the fact that it wasn't the main event feud but rather a midcard feud actually hurt its prestige. It still was the best thing going on Smackdown at the time.
Styles gave Corbin the match of his career.
Then Styles had 5 consecutive awesome PPV matches with Balor, Lesnar, Jinder, Owens/Sami and the 5-Pack challenge.
The match at Wrestlemania was also good but as good as people wanted it to be because THEY booked it that way and they wanted to do more with it after that. The 3 matches that followed between AJ ans Shinsuke were amazing.
Plus, AJ had that fresh feeling in 2016 and he was a cool heel whereas now he's not fresh anymore and he's an old-school babyface. This doesn't change the fact that he has been the best babyface WWE has had since Daniel Bryan in 2014. He has nailed the babyface thing.

Underperforming? Maybe. Maybe he's not the same passionate AJ Styles he was in 2016, but still, even like that, he sits at the top of the roster, in every aspect. Your problems seem to be more about WWE's creative directions rather than Styles himself.

[BestSportsEntertainer]

Your problems seem to be more about WWE's creative directions rather than Styles himself.

Yep. I was being WAY too harsh on Styles. Booking as a whole has been horrible on Smackdown over the last year, and I would say Styles has done very well all things considered.

[Y 2 Jake]

You can blame creative but Styles hasn't been competing to his usual standards for a while now. He's currently fine. I expect more.

[jmt225]

You can blame creative but Styles hasn't been competing to his usual standards for a while now. He's currently fine. I expect more.

Well, he is 40 now.

Still a hell of an athlete but nowhere near what he once was. He does his best to make up for it though and is still capable of having the best match on any stacked card.

[Y 2 Jake]

As a 40 year old, who I think is almost on the same level as Shawn Michaels, he should probably adapt his style. Get more out of less.

[nightmare]

Now that they have him away from the awkwardly booked Nakamura situation, he can go back to doing his thing. Although nothing wrong w Rusev winning and AJ getting it back before the end of the summer.

If he keeps it past Summer Slam, lets just hope they dont think about him vs Taker at Survivor Series as some way to bump ratings instead of doimg a better job creatively or just bringing Cena back in.

A 3 way between AJ, Joe and Bryan is the best option. So let Rusev have his moment and lets move on to the big match.