AJ Styles has been the name which is associated with the Smackdown Live brand from the very beginning.
He is said to be the man who runs the place on Tuesday Nights. So, the blue brand is rightly said to be the “house that AJ Styles built”. He is the one bonafide star of this brand who has the calibre to attract the fans by his wrestling skills.
Quite often, we use to hear from the wrestling pundits that AJ Styles is the best wrestler in the whole world, today. It is quite right considering we can’t take our eyes away when he is performing inside the ring. It is why he is called the Phenomenal One.
But, quite surprisingly, we have not seen him wrestle much on WWE TV, in recent times. The last time he wrestled in a match on Smackdown Live was three weeks ago in a match against Tye Dillinger which was cut short by Baron Corbin’s interference. Although he was supposed to defend his United States title against The Lone Wolf, the match got stopped due to Corbin ambushing the champion.
So, the question remained as of why the creative teams in not giving him the chance to wrestle on WWE TV. There were rumours of his injury, too which might be prohibiting him from competing.
However, the speculations were wiped out by Dave Meltzer of Wrestling Observer Newsletter who suggested that AJ Styles is very much performing in WWE Shows, on a regular basis. But, he has not been much active during the Smackdown episodes. As per the reason behind the same, there are Meltzer’s quotes,
“Working every night. Saved for dark matches a lot on Tuesday to make sure crowd doesn’t leave during 205 Live.”
It is true considering that Styles competed in the dark match on this week’s Smackdown Live. He teamed up with Randy Orton and Shinsuke Nakamura to pick up the win against Rusev, Jinder Mahal, and Baron Corbin. At Hell in a Cell, he will be defending the US title against Baron Corbin.