AJ Styles had a 371-day championship run in 2018. It was a trend-setter reign in the WWE and especially on Smackdown Live. It was the longest reign with the most coveted title on the sports entertainment on the blue brand. Earlier, JBL had such a title run that existed for 281 days that AJ broke while carrying the Smackdown brand.
Top 10 facts from AJ Styles title run
The Phenomenal One was ready to break another record set by CM Punk. He holds the longest championship reign in the modern era with the WWE Championship. But Daniel Bryan snatched the title away from AJ Styles to keep an abrupt end to a historic run. These two fought another battle at TLC with the current champion retaining.
AJ Styles has now entered in a storyline angle with Vince McMahon. It started from last week onwards where these two had a confrontation. The Boss wanted to witness the vicious side of the former WWE Champion or rather bring the animal out of him. He slapped AJ Styles in a random way to receive a punch to the mouth.
This came as an utter shock to the WWE Universe. AJ Styles entered the storyline on a sudden basis coming out of the title picture. It did not have any such base or existing elements to drag forward unless new angles are going to be filmed. Wrestling Observer Newsletter hinted why WWE planned such an angle.
They confirmed that keeping AJ Styles relevant on Smackdown is one of the main reasons behind starting the angle. Plus, it also shows that he is ‘the face runs the place’ (courtesy wwfoldschool.com)
“According to the Wrestling Observer, this angle was done to take Styles to the next level (as only a selected few wrestlers are chosen to get physical with Mr. McMahon at this point). Another reason this was done was to make sure Styles remains hot despite dropping the Title and not become just some former champion who gets lost in the mix.”
Prior to this, Kevin Owens and Roman Reigns were the only superstars to put their hands on Vince McMahon. AJ Styles became the only third one in recent times to join this list. Hopefully, it would drag him to bigger things in time for Wrestlemania 35.
Two years ago, AJ Styles competed against Shane McMahon at Wrestlemania 33. We guess another such McMahon-centric angle is building on Smackdown, this time around. For now, he will be getting a WWE title rematch against Daniel Bryan at Royal Rumble.
