AJ Styles vs. Daniel Bryan was the lineup at Royal Rumble 2019 over the WWE Championship. This is a dream match on any given day that has the power to sell out a pay-per-view event. So WWE could not think of a better occasion to book it on a night where they had to sell out a stadium that has a capacity of 40000 plus crowd.
Now the only fact that might have made things a bit stale is that this has become a repeated lineup. We have already seen AJ Styles vs. Daniel Bryan on different occasions in 2018 on Smackdown Live. In fact, this feud over the WWE Championship has been going on for over almost three months prior to Royal Rumble.
So WWE added Vince McMahon into the context for some unknown reason. We saw him sharing segments on Smackdown just wanting to see the real AJ Styles. He also wanted to bring the animal out from the inside that might have been a tease of something big. We wondered whether this meant a return during this title match at Royal Rumble changing the scenario.
AJ Styles started the Royal Rumble title match on an aggressive note. He sent his opponent to the outside with an arm-drag. Bryan came back with some vicious chops to the chest of AJ Styles. As the match progressed on the outside, Bryan sent his opponent’s hands into the ring post. A hurt Styles got locked into an arm-bar submission move by the champion.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jAD6JrXZ9ys
Daniel Bryan unloaded some punches to the face of AJ Styles to leave him busted open at Royal Rumble. He continued punishing the Phenomenal One hitting a Dragon Suplex. The punishment continued with a series of YES kicks. AJ Styles reversed it into a Calf Crusher outside. But Bryan escaped the hold knocking him down. Styles hit a banana split and locked in the Calf Crusher again!
Daniel Bryan was in severe pain and almost tapped out at Royal Rumble. Styles hit Bryan with a suplex and went for an Enziguiri which hit the referee. Eric Rowan came out as the referee was down and hit AJ Styles with a chokeslam! Daniel Bryan crawled and pinned AJ Styles to retain the WWE Championship at Royal Rumble.
