This Sunday, Smackdown’s top two draft picks are set to face for the WWE World Heavyweight Championship. Current champion Dean Ambrose is entering Backlash with a run that began since he cashed in on Seth Rollins at Money In The Bank. Since then, he’s defeated his Shield brethren and Dolph Ziggler, and is now faced with an interesting challenge in AJ Styles.
A case can be made that AJ Styles has been WWE’s top performer this year. He made his debut at the Royal Rumble in shocking fashion, when a sort of melodious, gospel-like theme played until the word “phenomenal” appeared, and that has since then described AJ’s year in WWE. He had two very good matches with Chris Jericho, carried Roman Reigns to arguably the best match of his career at Extreme Rules and had another two match series classic, the latter of which was one of the best Summesrlam matches of all time. Styles has evolved much and has learned to adapt to the WWE style after being the face of TNA and later in NJPW. While he’s failed at his quest to win the WWE Championship thus far and has lost his feud against Roman Reigns but he is presented with perhaps his best opportunity at winning the WWE Championship, and there is no reason why WWE shouldn’t pull the trigger on AJ and move in a different direction. In order to substantiate the claim of giving Styles the championship, I think we should evaluate the performance of the champion, Dean Ambrose.
Dean Ambrose was drafted second in the WWE draft as WWE Champion above the likes of the faces of the company in years gone by such as John Cena and Randy Orton. Ambrose has had himself quite the 2016 as well, starting with a terrific match against Kevin Owens at the Royal Rumble, and while he meandered through fruitless feuds with Brock Lesnar and Chris Jericho, Dean eventually found himself as Mr. MITB and eventually defeated Seth Rollins in an act of revenge to win the WWE Championship. He then successfully defended the title in the long-awaited triple threat match between all three members of The Shield. Since he was drafted, he had a great build-up to his feud with Dolph Ziggler, but the match didn’t live up to the hype that Smackdown beautifully built. Ambrose has yet to face the other top guys on the roster such as Randy Orton and Bray Wyatt (who will have their own match tomorrow). Ambrose really hasn’t gotten the opportunity to test his metal, so to speak, and I believe we will get a better indication of how far he’s really come facing AJ Styles, the fourth pick in the WWE draft. Here is the real reason why I think AJ should win tomorrow.
WWE essentially put themselves in this position. Beating John Cena clean, as AJ Styles so gracefully reminded us, has put WWE in this position to capitalize on his momentum. AJ beating Cena twice, once clean at a bigger venue, has forced WWE to continue to ride the Styles train, but there’s no reason why they shouldn’t. AJ also put on a very good match with Dolph Ziggler on Smackdown a couple of weeks ago, and his performance on the mic and in the ring have been very consistent. The build-up to the match has been, well, pathetic. Both segments between these two men in the ring have ended with shots featuring their crotches getting hurt, and one can imagine that will somehow play into the finish of tomorrow’s match. But here is the important question. Can WWE really allow AJ to beat the face that runs the place squeaky clean at Summerslam and then lose to the WWE Champion on his next PPV match? AJ also mentioned to Ambrose that while he’s champion, he’s no John Cena. So losing to someone that’s underneath John Cena in the WWE pecking order would collapse all the momentum AJ has built as arguably the top heel in the company. Considering that this is also his first year, his accomplishments are all the more amplified. AJ was one of the best wrestlers to never work under WWE (Unless you count a useless edition of Jakked), so it’s no surprise that he’s successful, but I think his standing in the draft, his matches and his overall work has impressed officials, and reportedly Vince himself.
The satisfaction of Vince McMahon goes a long way in things, and I think the wise thing to do would be to give AJ Styles the championship. Of course, WWE can have Dean win tomorrow and have AJ pick up the win in another match at No Mercy (because let’s face it, he’s winning at either of those two events), but because of the build-up that AJ has had up to this point, there’s a big choice that has to be made. Of course, there’s another alternative that WWE can accomplish tomorrow, because of the crotch shots both men have taken at each other leading up to tomorrow. I think there may be a slight possibility that Dean turns heel tomorrow. I don’t think it’s wise, because AJ as a face is and has always been much more appealing. Plus, if they were to turn Dean heel and double turn AJ in the process, that would leave him, Cena and Orton as the top faces, while the top heels would be Ambrose, Wyatt, and I guess, Corbin. So I don’t really see the balance if WWE opts to go down that route. However, if they choose to do that, and say have, Ambrose low blow Styles to get him DQ’ed, AJ remains protected and Ambrose remains champion until a future date. If you ask me, Dean is at his best when he’s neither a face or a heel. He should be like Randy Orton or Stone Cold and just attack anyone who is in his way, not make friends or enemies and be the serious tweener that he showed glimpses of in his feud with Ziggler. Leading up to this match, he’s resorted to childish hijinks and bad humor to build up to a WWE Championship match.
In spite of all of this, in conclusion, WWE should pull the trigger tomorrow if the urge strikes them. I can’t think of anyone who would think that AJ Styles would be on the WWE roster, and much less represent the company as WWE Champion, but I think his career has led up to this moment, and similar to how Kevin Owens won the WWE Universal Championship last week on RAW in shocking fashion, WWE can continue the shock value by giving the richest prize in the business to the man who has personified the word “phenomenal” since day 1.
Agree? Disagree? Let me know. Thanks for reading guys! Until next time!
