AJ Styles – The Phenominal Hit
What’s that? The last year of AJ Styles has been a…hit?
Yes. Don’t mistake a series of intentionally bad booking situations with a terrible character, or series of events. I think we can all agree the whole Claire Lynch storyline was a mistake. Let’s move on from there.
Underneath Claire Lynch there was a pretty solid idea. Go back and watch some of those scenes where Dixie Carter blew up at the production crew. She wasn’t half bad at her role, and the idea that the president of a wrestling company could be involved in something scandalous isn’t that ridiculous. Vince McMahon has made a career out of exposing his family to insane scandals. AJ Styles has been her poster boy for an entire decade. The story made sense (on paper), and could have been compelling if given the chance (or if fans were less jaded).
Let’s move past that entire ordeal now. The one good thing Claire Lynch did for AJ Styles is it made him look weak. It made him look so weak, in fact, that TNA booked an entire story around him. And after multiple losses to Christopher Daniels – his long-time archenemy – and losing his World title opportunity, Styles took his proverbial ball and went home. He lost his smile. He went back to Chicago to reevaluate his WWE career as a Paul Heyman guy.
Maybe I’m in the minority, but I’ve really enjoyed brooding AJ Styles. I’ve liked the uncertainty of his ethics, and trying to figure out if he’d join Aces & Eights or fall back in line with Team TNA. Teasing a Fortune reunion was a great move. So after a decade of virtually the same AJ Styles, barring a short run with Ric Flair as manager, it’s awesome to see something fresh. And that’s why I’ve labelled the last year of his career as a resounding “hit”.
