It’s safe to say AJ Styles is the franchise player of the Smackdown Live brand. WWE made him the poster boy of the blue brand ever since 2016. The brand extension draft came back two years ago revamping the entire complexion of the company.
A number of new faces in the brand benefitted from it as more opportunities kept on coming their way.
Well, AJ Styles is certainly the one who made the most out of those. Currently, he is in the middle of his WWE Championship reign that is going on even before the Survivor Series 2017 PPV. It is his second championship reign which proved to be historic enough. He is a fighting champion who defended it against the likes of Nakamura, Rusev, Samoa Joe.
Meanwhile, AJ Styles has crossed the 300-day landmark reaching another milestone. He has already become the longest reigning WWE Champion passing JBL’s earlier reign from 2005. (281 days) Now he entered an elite league of superstars who have 300 plus day WWE Championship reign under their belt.
Only three more names had long championship reigns than AJ Styles in the modern era. Kevin Nash, John Cena, and CM Punk are those three. As we all know, the latter one had the longest reign with the WWE Championship which counted 434 days. Overall, AJ Styles stands in the eighth position in the longest title reigning superstars’ list.
It’s worth to note AJ Styles is a two-time WWE Championship winner. The first time it happened at Backlash 2016 where he defeated Dean Ambrose. In the second time, he defeated Jinder Mahal on an episode of the United Kingdom in November 2017. In combined, these two reigns span for more than 405+days.
AJ Styles is set to defend his WWE Championship against Samoa Joe at Hell in a Cell PPV. It might be the place where he might drop the title to Joe. It could only stop if the creative team intends to break CM Punk’s record via the Phenomenal One. Many believe him to be the very best in the locker room.
But he does not look things that way, (from Lilian Garcia’s podcast),
“I try to stay humble and never assume anything because when you break down the word assume, you know what that means. Like I said, I never assume anything and in this business, you can’t.”
