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The WWE Championship is the most prestigious title to ever exist in sports entertainment. It is the biggest badge of honour and the highest accolade a superstar can earn in the largest professional wrestling company in the world today.
It's safe to say that the individual holding it is considered the most valuable player out of the roster and is positioned at the top of the card, right?
Well, that's not quite in the case for the current WWE Champion, AJ Styles. Despite being one of the top wrestling performers currently active in the world and wearing the WWE Championship around his waist for over 314 days, Styles' run as the WWE Champion feels as if something is badly missing with what could've been a genuine star-making title run.
For starters, it didn't help matters when he beat Jinder Mahal of all people to kick-start his second run atop the Smackdown mountain. It was already an uphill battle to bring back relevancy to the WWE Championship, a title which was previously held by an undercard talent who was in no way ready to carry the mantle before Styles.
The WWE title has been on a supremely better superstar since and to his credit, Styles has been able to do a lot for the title after Mahal, but one can't help but wonder why there's so much more to be desired.
In this article, we look at the three main reasons why Styles' run as the WWE Champion feels mediocre at best and how all that can be solved going forward. Make sure to leave your thoughts about this in the comments section down below to dive into the debate yourself.
3. Keeping it away from the real main event
Perhaps the biggest problem with Styles' current reign atop is his positioning on a PPV card and the lack of importance given to build his match even on Smackdown Live. The last time the WWE Champion closed out any show was at Fastlane back in March this year and that too was a 6-pack challenge (including John Cena).
Now it technically does make some sense as the company has gone back to dual branded PPVs since and logistically, only one match can main event a show, but the sad truth is that a lot of shows since then have not even had any Universal championship match at all.
Title-less bouts, an Intercontinental title match & gimmick matches have all taken precedence over the WWE Championship matches on these PPV cards for the most part.
It is abundantly clear that over on RAW, the main program opens the show every week, sets the stage for the broadcast and then ends it. The slot has been reserved for the main event scene very strictly as we're currently seeing The Shield, Braun Strowman and party regularly open and close the weekly broadcast.
On Smackdown Live though, the last time the WWE Champion was ever involved in the closing segment of the broadcast was back on May 15th when Styles went up against Shinsuke Nakamura to determine their match stipulation at Money in the Bank.
It is not necessarily a bad thing every now and then to base a broadcast on the tag teams or the women or whatever Daniel Bryan is doing, but when everything appears so evenly matched on the brand, there's ultimately no hierarchy to look up to and nothing gets over quite well.
It's high time the company starts treating the WWE Championship scene as the real main event at least on Smackdown Live and have Styles main event some PPVs going forward, but that leads us to our second problem...
2. Lack of legitimate stars to contend for the WWE championship
Now, I may get a lot of heat for this but Samoa Joe and Nakamura (as good as they are) are not established main eventers in the WWE today and are still trying to find their way to the top. If you divide the WWE title scene into 3 aspects (the champion, the championship and the challenger), at least one of them has to be powerful enough so that the weaker one can leverage out of it.
For example, AJ Styles vs John Cena for the WWE title at Royal Rumble 2017 felt like a real main event and helped Styles further his footing at the top (agree or not) because Cena was involved. It doesn't help matters when all those aspects are weak and the program does more harm to the up-and-comer than good.
Imagine how much more attention management would have given it if the Summerslam match was Samoa Joe vs John Cena or AJ Styles vs Randy Orton for the title.
Speaking of which, when are we finally going to get the inevitable Orton vs Styles feud? They've been active full-time on the same brand for over 2 years now!
It would've propelled Joe to the next level (which we have not seen since his feud for the Universal title with Brock Lesnar).
Styles and the WWE Championship can be so much more just by being in a program with Orton, let alone if he beats Orton, because the WWE will be much more comfortable positioning Styles vs Orton as the main-event of a PPV than it will be for Joe or Nakamura.
Imagine if Batista finally makes his return to the WWE and challenges AJ Styles or the WWE Championship, there's no way they're not closing out PPVs. But going by WWE's track record, Batista will most likely return on RAW and challenge Roman Reigns for whatever title he holds at the time.
Smackdown Live has always been The Undertaker's brand. What's stopping them to book a feud between The Phenom and The Phenomenal One for the WWE Championship?
If reports are something to go by, Shawn Michaels may just make his in-ring return very soon. If that's true, would you rather see him tag with Triple H against Kane and The Undertaker, or in a one-on-one match against AJ Styles?
1. Where's the "Styles magic"?
PPV main-events, star-studded title scene, screen time every week on SD Live, none of it matters as much as the quality of matches being delivered in the main event picture. When Styles first competed for the WWE Championship prior to the brand split, he and Reigns produced what were widely regarded as Reigns' best series of matches till that point.
A few months later and he was tearing the house down alongside Dean Ambrose, John Cena and even Shane McMahon. To put it lightly, Styles has been missing that edge ever since he won his second world championship late last year.
His last great PPV match is considered to be the one with Lesnar at Survivor Series 2017. Although his Last Man Standing match against Nakamura at Money in the Bank earlier this year was very good, they had so many underwhelming matches to get to that point, that the damage was already done by that time.
In addition to that, the screwy finish to most of his PPV matches in 2018 (including both his recent matches against Joe) and you have some widely anticipated dream matches that were ruined under the burden of creative bankruptcy.
Whether it's on the company or the performers, the WWE Championship needs the brightest spotlight and in case of Styles, he has all the tools to deliver big when it matters the most. It is his time to show exactly what made his first title run so good and besides, it's high time that the WWE title picture feels (pun intended) Phenomenal again.
