From The Rumor Mill: Details on the possible injury that AJ Styles is struggling with 

What's the story?

Last weekend WWE Champion AJ Styles was attacked by Sami Zayn and Kevin Owens at a live event and has seemingly been struggling with an injury over the past week with his WrestleMania match with Shinsuke Nakamura being thrown into doubt.

In case you didn't know...

Zayn and Owens have been part of a number of storylines recently and it seems that the attack at last weekend's live event was seen as the end of their feud. The attack happened at the beginning of the show, but Styles was still able to limp out and fend off another attack from the duo at the end of the show.

Styles wasn't on last weeks episode of SmackDown Live which only fuelled the rumors that the star was struggling with an undisclosed injury. Despite these reports, Styles returned to the ring at this weekend's live shows where be proved that he was fit and ready to defend his WWE Championship against Nakamura in less than two weeks at WrestleMania.

The heart of the matter

There have been a number of reports over the past few days regarding Styles' injury, which could be why Dave Meltzer decided to weigh in on it on today's Wrestling Observer Radio, where he revealed that he thought that it was an MCL injury. (Transcript via Ringsidenews)

“He’s hurt but I don’t think there is any big problem with him doing the match since he worked all weekend. They did SmackDown eight-man tag matches, with AJ teaming with The New Day in the main events. He didn’t do much in the ring. He was there and did wrestle which means he was cleared. There is nothing for him to worry about in doing the match. Knowing him and the fact that it’s WrestleMania, even if he’s on one leg he’s going to have a great match with Nakamura. My presumption is it’s an MCL injury but it’s still not confirmed.”

Depending on how severe Styles' injury is, it seems that he could be on the shelf for a few weeks after WrestleMania as he hopes to recover. Given that he has been working live events, it means that it isn't that severe, but it will be something that WWE continues to assess ahead of the biggest event of the year.

This is something that isn't yet confirmed, but if Styles is struggling with an injury then he will want to be working a light schedule ahead of his match with Nakamura which is still one of the most anticipated matches on the card for this year's WrestleMania.

What's next?

Styles and Nakamura will continue to build up their match at WrestleMania since Styles missed last week's show, it is thought that he will be in attendance this week for the penultimate show before WrestleMania.

Author's take

Meltzer is right, Styles is the kind of star who would perform on one leg if he has too. He's the WWE Champion and he knows that the match against Nakamura is one that many fans are looking forward to. WWE just need to wrap their Champion in bubble wrap over the next few weeks and then allow him time to rest after the biggest event of the year.