What’s the story?
WWE Champion AJ Styles recently spoke to AL.com about why his matches against Roman Reigns are his favourites from last year. Among other things, he also discussed the need for him to do a better job as a heel as opposed to what he is doing at present.
In case you didn’t know…
Since making his debut at the Royal Rumble last year, AJ Styles has been on a roll and has quickly climbed up the ladder to become a WWE champion. During his near year-long journey in the WWE, Styles has engaged in multiple feuds and one of them was against Roman Reigns. At the time, Reigns was the WWE World Heavyweight Champion and ‘The Phenomenal One’ claimed the #1 contender’s spot for the title by winning a fatal four-way match on Raw.
AJ and ‘The Big Dog’ met at the Payback pay-per-view where the latter managed to retain his title despite the match being restarted on two occasions and Styles’ former Bullet Club mates Luke Gallows and Karl Anderson interfering. ‘The Face That Runs The Place’ was given a rematch at Extreme Rules but lost another hard fought match after an interference from The Usos.
The heart of the matter
Looking back at his debut year in the WWE, AJ Styles claimed to have had a lot of great matches and was proud about some of them. According to Styles, the matches that he fought against Roman Reigns put him across as the guy who can have great matches with any of the other superstars on the roster. This is what ‘The Champ That Runs The Camp’ had to say:
“I have a lot of great matches in 2016. There are some I was real proud of. With Roman Reigns -- and don't get me wrong, WrestleMania was also a big one, too -- but I just felt like my matches with Roman Reigns set the tone of how AJ Styles was going to be presented in 2016, like this guy who gets after it and has great matches with just about anyone on the roster.”
On his present ‘heel’ character, the WWE Champion said that because he was not getting the crowd to boo him, he feels that he may not be doing things right. However, he opined that the fans, at times, refuse to accept him as a ‘heel’ perhaps due to their respect for the kind of work he has done before joining the WWE. ‘The Phenomenal One’ was quoted as saying this:
“Sometimes I feel like if I'm not getting people to boo me, then I'm not doing my job right. So that's on me. I need to be better about being the bad guy. And sometimes they just refuse. These fans just refuse to accept me as the bad guy. That has a lot to do with how much time I spent outside the WWE and coming here and doing so well, they respect that, I guess you could say.”
What next?
AJ Styles will be defending his WWE championship against the 15-time world champion John Cena at the Royal Rumble as the latter tries to equal the legendary Ric Flair’s record of 16 world titles.
Sportskeeda’s Take
The arrival of AJ Styles in the WWE was certainly one of the biggest highlights of 2016 and he has certainly managed to raise the bar in terms of his performance over the past 12 months.
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