The Road To WrestleMania With WWE World Champion AJ Styles

23 March 2018 | 1:20 pm | Staff Writer
Originally Appeared In

As WrestleMania creeps closer and closer, and our excitement for the event is peaking here at KYS, and as always, we like the big names to answer to big questions, so what bigger name in pro wrestling to get than the WWE World Champion, the “Phenomenal One” AJ Styles.

As WrestleMania creeps closer and closer, and our excitement for the event is peaking here at KYS, and as always, we like the big names to answer to big questions, so what bigger name in pro wrestling to get than the WWE World Champion, the “Phenomenal One” AJ Styles.



To die-hard wrestling fans, the thought of seeing AJ Styles at a WrestleMania was a distant thought 3 years ago, as he was dominating the Japanese and American independent wrestling scenes. Add the constant downplaying and denial of talks with the sports-entertainment giants, fans just accepted that maybe WWE wasn’t the place for him. Until the Royal Rumble 2016, when entrant number 3 was the Phenomenal One. AJ Styles had arrived at the land of opportunity and everyone automatically thought about potential WrestleMania moments we will see for them already wrestling legend. “It was the right place and the right time for me”, the now 40-year-old says “There were a lot of injuries to the main event guys at the time and I saw no better time to arrive”.

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Styles’ arrival in 2016 was met with a lot of excitement, as days earlier Japanese megastar and Styles’ opponent at this year’s Wrestlemania on April 8th, Shinsuke Nakamura had signed with the WWE with fans then hoping for them to meet to recreate their epic first-time encounter in Japan on January 4th, 2016 “So many people have seen the match between Shinsuke and I in Japan, but so many haven’t. So I feel like it won’t be a problem to make it any different. If I had to pick someone in the WWE to put on a match that meets these high expectations it would be Shinsuke”.

The amount of buzz around Styles vs. Nakamura 2 is the biggest around a WrestleMania match in quite some time, but the WWE champion is sure that WWE Championship match is going to be the main event of the show, no matter where it is placed on the 6 hour wrestling marathon “It will be main event calibre filled with main event talent for the main event championship, you’ve got everything you’re gonna want to see no matter where it is on the card”. That is a bold statement, seeing as the WrestleMania card is already stacked with championship matches with the Smackdown Women’s Championship match between Charlotte and Asuka and the Inter-Continental Championship match between The Mia, Finn Balor and Seth Rollins, but wrestling fans know that this match is going WrestleMania moment never to forget.

As well as being the first time Styles and Nakamura will compete against each other in the WWE, it is also the first time Styles has defended any WWE championship he has won at Wrestlemania, but that doesn’t phase him too much “I take all these matches the same, even if it’s not a title defence, I always try and put on a great match and be prepared for it, because the fans have paid their money to see a show and to see me, so I always try and put on the best show possible”.

Having wrestled all over the world, including Australia multiple times for 20 years, and after holding nearly every major championship in professional wrestling you’d think Styles would consider his career quite a success, and although he is proud of his achievements, there is always room for growth “I think there is always going to be a bigger prize and you’ll always set bigger goals for yourself and see if you can reach them” he says “That’s a part of being successful, I’m always reaching, always searching for something bigger”. With the next few weeks being full-on for the World Championship, with a full touring schedule and training regime still happening, Styles uses his downtime at home and on the road wisely by immersing himself in his second love - video games.

With his XBOX by his side he battles through PUBG and Fortnite, but he has often pondered which classic gaming characters would be best fit to join him in the main event of WrestleMania “A classic would be Ryu vs. Ken, that's an easy one to think of, but I would go further back and would love to see the Mario brothers fight in one on one competition”.

Well, whether it be against a Mario brother, a Street Fighter of a Japanese wrestling legend, AJ Styles is always one to watch and the crowd are always excited to see, and we will be incredibly excited to see his monumental match against Shinsuke Nakamura when we cover WrestleMania live from New Orleans!



WrestleMania is live, Monday, April 9th on the WWE Network.