#2 AJ Styles
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Since his debut at Royal Rumble in 2016, nobody has had more impact in WWE than AJ Styles. After an impressive debut at the Rumble, Styles went on to have a match with Chris Jericho at Wrestlemania last year.
Although Styles lost, the next night he won a Fatal Four Way matchup to become the number one contender to the WWE Champion at the time, Roman Reigns. After a contest, which was laden with interference at Payback, the two had a “Match of the Year” candidate at Extreme Rules that saw Roman retain his title after a brutal match.
While a babyface at the time, Styles teased turning heel several times throught his feud with Reigns, but it wasn’t until his next feud with John Cena where AJ Styles solidified his spot among the top talents in WWE.
After turning heel by attacking John Cena, AJ Styles went on a run that few in this company have ever seen. He beat John Cena at Money in the Bank with help from The Club, then did it again at Summerslam, clean as a whistle.
After defeating John Cena at Summerslam, Styles proclaimed to be the “new face of WWE” and demanded to be announced as “The Face That Runs The Place”, which had been Cena’s nickname for years.
After taking Cena down twice, Styles injected himself back in the WWE Title picture and quickly earned his shot at the title and Smackdown Champion at the time, Dean Ambrose. In Smackdown Live’s first branded PPV, “The Phenomenal” AJ Styles won the WWE Championship, becoming the first person in sports-entertainment history to win World Championships in TNA, New Japan, and WWE.
For the next few months, Styles would defend and retain his title in a rematch with Ambrose and in a Triple Threat match against Ambrose and Cena, his two biggest WWE rivals to date. After over a four-month reign, Styles finally lost the title to John Cena at Royal Rumble, in a match that will be extremely difficult to beat out for 2017 “Match of the Year”.
Now feuding with Shane McMahon, Styles has had arguably the greatest year ever for a WWE rookie and deserves almost more than anyone to main event WWE’s biggest show.
