5 biggest questions after AJ Styles moved to WWE Raw
The first night of the 2019 WWE Superstar Shake-Up saw AJ Styles end his three-year stay on SmackDown Live to join Monday Night Raw.
During his first year on the blue brand, “The Phenomenal One” bragged about being the new “Face That Runs The Place” following his victory over John Cena at SummerSlam 2016, while he repeatedly claimed that SmackDown Live was “the house that AJ Styles built”.
After his four-month WWE Championship reign and WrestleMania 33 rivalry with Shane McMahon, Styles became arguably the top babyface in WWE during his feuds with Kevin Owens and Jinder Mahal in 2017.
He then defeated Mahal on an episode of SmackDown Live in November 2017 to become a two-time WWE champion, and his resulting reign lasted a total of 371 days before he finally lost the title against Daniel Bryan in November 2018.
From there, Styles suffered a dip in momentum in late 2018/early 2019 before defeating Randy Orton in a match at WrestleMania 35 which was built around Styles’ past reputation as “The King of the Indies” and Orton’s moniker as “The Face of WWE”.
Now that the former WWE and United States champion is officially part of the Raw roster, let’s take a look at five of the biggest questions that need answering ahead of what is expected to be another busy year of matches for one of WWE’s top in-ring performers.
#5 When will he face Seth Rollins?
AJ Styles and Seth Rollins are widely regarded as two of the best in-ring talents in WWE right now, yet they have never met in a one-on-one televised match throughout their three years together on the main roster.
Why? Well, they were only on the same roster for one month after Rollins’ return from injury in the summer of 2016, and since then the Universal champion has been a mainstay on Raw while Styles has been one of the most prominent Superstars over on SmackDown Live.
The only time they faced off on WWE television came in November 2016 when Styles was part of the SmackDown Live team that defeated Rollins’ Team Raw at Survivor Series. Other than that, they have teamed up on three occasions, most recently on Monday’s Raw with Roman Reigns to defeat Baron Corbin, Drew McIntyre and Bobby Lashley, but they have not faced each other.
A match of this calibre is undoubtedly WrestleMania-worthy, but it would not be a surprise if WWE decided to go ahead with the rivalry during the summer instead.